An Original Sin
An Original Sin by Nina Bangs is part of the new "Wink & A Kiss" series
published by Leisure.
Four-Two-N MacDonald lives in the year 2300 a world that has no living man left alive in it. Because of a cloning accident years before the entire male population was wiped out. Four-Two-N has never seen a man in the flesh but she is an expert on them because she makes them for a living. The various models such as Stud-Muffin-Stuart are the only way that the women of her world can know a man.
So when Four-Two-N wakes up in a strange bed with a real man she at first mistakes him for a fake.
Leith Campbell is a Highland Warrior from 1700 and he too is confused by his arrival in a strange bed, in a strange place, with a very strange women who claims never to have seen a man before.
Together they soon discover that they have somehow been transported to the year 2000 where they appear to be indefinitely.
Leith decides to use his time in the 20th century to discover what happened at Glencoe where he and his people were engaged with their enemy the MacDonalds. Four-Two-N, or Fortune as she is renamed by Leith does not immediately reveal that she is a MacDonald.
Fortune soon begins to plot how to bring Leith back to the year 2300 where she hopes he can save the human race. However Leith is not eager to be a freak in her world where he knows he will have no life except that which is dictated for him by the scientists.
Meanwhile, unknown to both Leith and Fortune they are being watched over by the creator of all this chaos who is in the form of a cat. The demon had decided to cause chaos by throwing together the two most unlikely people he could discover, and then when they start to fall in love, to tear them apart again. In Leith and Fortune he has found the perfect couple for his plan and he is with them every step of the way.
An Original Sin is particularly well named as this is one of the most original stories I have read in recent years.
Leith is a hero who takes to the 20th century like a duck to water and it is easy to feel sympathy for this man who is not only at the mercy of the meddling cat but also the victim of the ever-plotting Fortune.
For Fortune comes across at times as a particularly unlikeable character. While it is only natural that she would be more familiar with the 20th century, having read about it, she does come across as rather condescending on Leith. And her determination to take him back to the future with her does get a little tedious. Her accusations towards Leith of being selfish in not wanting to give up his home, family, friends and life in return for saving her, not very likeable world, seem rather hypocritical.
I admit that Fortune does come through in the end but I would like to have seen her come around to Leith's way of thinking sooner and find some other way of saving her people from themselves.
An original, entertaining, and sometimes humorous story with a fantastic
hero who frankly deserved a more selfless heroine.
RATING : 
(if you need an explanation of the hearts ratings see
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Also by Nina Bangs: The Pleasure Master and Night Games
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