Time Masters 1: The Call

Time Masters: The Call by Geralyn Beauchamp is speculative fiction about a race (Muirarans) living among us, able to assume human form, heal, and even travel through time. When they mate with humans, the result is a synergy of great power, as the human male can wield his wife's abilities.

Terran society in the fortieth century is in danger from an enemy's attempts to change time. Its current time master is about to retire, perhaps for good, and a replacement is needed. Shona, the Muiraran half of the pair with latent time-bending ability, has been kidnapped as a baby to the late twentieth century, and fortieth-century agents must unite her as an adult with her chosen mate, Dallan, a seventeenth-century Scotsman, before the couple's bond kills them both--and before her unknown kidnapper can do further harm. But the kidnapper has trained Shona to distrust men, and Dallan doesn't believe any of this nonsense.

The story is reasonably fast-paced and believable; the characters are generally well-developed, though oddly I found one of Shona's friends, the klutzy, boy-crazy Kitty Morgan, a stronger character than Shona proper. (It's implied that Kitty will return later, fortunately.) The humorous angle crops up a little late--if you're going for laughs, you should introduce that aspect early--but is well handled. There's also a fair amount of violence, though no real gore, and someone's sure to object that the good guys aren't teetotalers. I'd give it a mild PG and suggest it for high school and up. (The Potter books are more annoying in terms of gore and other problem content.)

In the next installment, I'll look at the positive aspects of the book; then I'll examine the negatives. Bowing to tradition, I'll then conclude with a conclusion.