Phantom in Time by Eugenia Riley

Bella De La Rosa has the voice of an angel and can do not other than work on the stage.  But her fear keeps her in the chorus line despite the reputations of her successful but competitive parents who vanished some years before when their car was swept off a cliff and into the Pacific during a violent storm.

As an attempt to gain recognition and overcome her fear Bella tries out for a role in the new production of Kaleidoscope.  The original production of this musical had on its opening night at the St Charles Opera House in the year 1896 witnessed the murder of the lead tenor Jacques LeFevre.  The mystery had never been solved…

Now in the year 1996 the theatre were going to recreate the show…only without the murder.

Bella does not expect to find herself coming face to face with the handsome and intriguing ghost of Jacques himself.  But sure enough she finds that he is not only a real ghost but that it is determined to bring her back across time to him.

And when the Kaleidoscope turns during a performance Bella finds herself in the past where Jacques is alive and well and using his arrogant charms on all the women in the company.  Securing herself a job with the same company his attention is quickly turned to her.

Telling himself he is searching for the woman with a voice to equal his own, a woman he can share his life on and off the stage with, Jacques has acquired for himself the reputation of a first-class rogue.  At first Bella is just another one of many women and although he is attracted to her he does not believe that she is the one he is to make his life with…and until she can lose her fear of the stage and sign with the angelic voice she has hidden away he will never know.

Dismissing Jacques attentions Bella does not believe that he is really interested in her for anything more than a brief affair and when she realises that he is serious about spending the rest of his life with her she must face up to her other fear…that of becoming like her competitive parents whose talent was equal to theirs but whose competitive streaks caused the endless and bitter quarrels of their marriage.

But all her battles over her fears will be for nothing if she cannot prevent Jacques murder.  Travelling back and forward in time Bella tries to unravel the mystery and thus alter the course of history.  With plenty of suspects and even people who have studied the mystery not coming up with any definite answer Bella certainly has her work cut out for her.

A time travel romance with a touch of mystery, all set against the backdrop of New Orleans.  Eugenia Riley brings the setting to life as she weaves the tale of the ghostly Jacques who called “the one” back across time to save him from being murdered and from living a life without her.

Delightful and daring, Ms Riley touches briefly on the complicated subject of altering the course of history while travelling back and forward in time with an expertise that shows through as the story neatly encompasses the theory.

I am not an opera fan at all and even I thoroughly enjoyed this book as much as I have done many of Eugenia Riley’s other novels.
 

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Also by Eugenia Riley:   Tempest in Time,  Waltz in Time,  Bushwhacked Bride, Embers of Time, Wanted Across Time, Timeswept Bride and Tryst in Time.

Read an interview with Eugenia Riley

Eugenia Riley's website.