It's been over five years since I received this ARC. I gave it a go and have decided it is not for me. I only requested it because I was just starting out and was only getting approved for specific publishers.

A time travel historical novel that puts a new spin on the missing sons of Edward IV and the 1400s!
An interesting read that carries you along at a good pace and keeps your attention throughout.

This was an excellent time travel story. It is clear that the author has done her research. I thought Jayne was a fun protagonist. There were times that the romance felt forced and was not developed enough. Still, I recommend this novel to Outlander fans!

Time travel, a strange love story, and a fulfilling mystery that will have you wondering to the end...

Though this book had a great premise, I was pressed hard to finish it. A story like this needs strong writing and this lacked that. I enjoyed the characters and found the 15th century way of life to be pretty accurate. Over all, it's not a terrible read and I was glad to have read it. However, do not expect a warm ending.

I enjoyed this fun book about a descendant of King Richard III who is at the excavation of his grave and plagued by dreams of his innocence. If you can suspend your disbelief a bit, it’s a nice idea. Entertaining writing and a strong female protagonist earn it a 4 star review fro me.

I enjoyed this book very much. It was refreshing to read about the 15th century.

I didn't make it very far in this book before giving up. I didn't feel like the writing was strong enough, and the dialogue especially felt strained. The first portion of the novel covers the well-documented discovery of the remains of King Richard III in a car park, but almost immediately jumps back in time to the Battle of Bosworth Field. The premise was good, but I just don't think it was handled very well. This book definitely wasn't for me.

I enjoyed this read. I haven't read much fiction featuring Richard III so that was a nice change from the usual Henrys and Louis. I really enjoy dual time period reads and this one is done well. I would recommend this to any historical fiction/romance fans especially those who enjoy the dual time period style.
I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this book was utterly fascinating. As an avid lover of all things Tudor Era, I am well-acquainted with Richard III and the mystery surrounding the boys in the tower. While I have read various historical fictions set in this era, I have never read a time-slip book centered around this favorite time period of mine.

I very much enjoyed getting to know the main character, Jayne. I thought she was a very interesting character and a believable heroine. I did feel that she adjusted to her unexpected arrival in the 15th century a tad too easily, but maybe that's just because I myself would be curled into a fetal position. But the author switching perspectives between Jayne and King Richard was a genius move. It added a massive depth to the book. I couldn't put the book down and happily added it to my Tudor favorites.

I am the first to admit that history is something that has always been interesting to me. So when you take some historical facts and weave them into an interesting storyline, I’m hooked! This happens to be one of those books.

This is the story of Jayne Lyon’s and opens with Jayne wanting to prove to the world that her distant relative King Richard III wasn’t the cold and callous brute that Shakespeare’s plays had portrayed. So when she came across an opportunity of a lifetime to volunteer on the archeological dig of King Richard III’s grave in Leicester, UK, she quickly gets herself into trouble, and finds herself back in the 1480’s during King Richard’s reign.

To surmise the basic storyline, it’s very similar to the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, but with one big difference, the major love interest in the king. I really enjoyed the novel and it’s historical accuracies and fancies and I am looking forward to reading more by this talented author. Thank you to NetGalley, the Publisher and talented author for my ARC for a fair and honest review.

The Medievalist is a historical fiction romance novel that takes features the time of King Richard III. Jayne, the female lead, is an historian and distant relative of King Richard. The story opens with Jayne at an archaeological dig site where the king is buried in present day. Jayne comes across one of the king's heirlooms, a silver boar, and, upon touching it, time travels back to Richard's time. Without a means to get back to present day, she finds herself adapting to her new surroundings while trying to unlock the mysteries of King Richard and clearing his name of his nephews' murder. During her journey, she winds up becoming the king's mistress. Readers are also presented to other noted historical figures of the time - Elizabeth of Woodville, Henry Tudor, and Anne Neville among others. Jayne and Richard's relationship was a bit awkward. It was hard for me to believe that they truly loved each other as opposed to just lusted over each other. There was little to no development of their relationship. I didn't really find myself connecting with Jayne as a leading character. It seemed like she just didn't care at times that she was stuck back in time. The author seemed to gloss over a lot of the historical details of the time. I felt like this was a good idea in concept, but the execution could have used some work.

I enjoyed the premise of this book more than the actual reading of it. I like time-travel stories when done right.
I found it a bit slow and confusing.
What also really wierded me out was (SPOILER)

the main character had a sexual relationship with her ancestor. It was a bit incestuous, a few generations off.

** spoiler alert ** Like many other people around the world, including this book’s heroine, Jayne, I was mesmerized by the discovery of Richard III’s body found buried under a Leicester parking lot. So, imagine my delight when I found this book while poking around on NetGalley looking for something to read. I adore a good time travel romance and was excited to read a new-to-me author. I received an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review and, honestly, I liked it.

However, I gotta take away one star right off the bat because of the ending. This book needs to have a warning. Full Disclosure: THERE IS NO HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Which, to me also means that this is a work of historical fiction, heavy with romantic elements, but it is not a time-travel romance. Because, c’mon. I just invested myself in the life and love of two people and then feel like history, fate, whatever has let me down. When you’re dealing with time-travel romance, you can change the past, present, and future meaning Richard and Jayne could have easily had their HEA. That they didn’t is something future readers may want to know ahead of time. Sure, Jayne did her part to change how Richard is viewed in her alternate future, but…they’re not together.

The other star is taken away because of a few other issues and lingering questions. As many reviewers have pointed out, we never really find out why or how the boar sigil worked. What happened to the sigil after she returned? Why hadn’t time passed when she returned? We don’t get a recap of what happened to Bess, Lord Stanley, or the Greyfriars. I mean, yes, you can look it up, but it would have been nice to include the information. Also, by skipping over great chunks of time, the reader really is left wondering about how they spent all that time spent together, yet Richard gets easily upset when Jayne asks him probing questions or tries to learn more about him. Was it just lust or truly love? Is Jayne is descended from Johnnie, which is why they got along so well? Or someone else? And, then there is my great pet peeve – she was pregnant from one night together. Le sigh.

So, emotional endings and my other issues aside, I enjoyed this book for several other, big, sweeping reasons. I enjoyed having a glimpse into 15th century England. I enjoyed the politics, battles, scheming, and alliances that form a tidy web and moved the plot along. I enjoyed that the book flips between Richard and Jayne’s perspectives. And, I liked that you got a sense of the difficulties of life, particularly for women, during this time period. The limited clothing, bathing and sleeping habits, and religious feasts/celebrations were especially interesting. All of these fascinating tidbits were really the strongest point in the book for me, not the romance. Which, again, is why I think this is really, at it’s heart, a work of historical fiction.

All that being said, if you’re curious about the life and times of Richard III or were riveted by the news of a British monarch whose burial site was lost and found, by all means, give this book a read. I am sure that you’ll enjoy it, too!

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

Historian Jane Lyons has been having recurring nightmares about her distant ancestor King Richard III for years. She has dedicated her academic career to finding evidence to prove that Richard did not in fact murder his young nephews-the Princes in the Tower-as is commonly believed. When she is presented with the opportunity to volunteer at the archeological dig site of Richard’s recently discovered grave in a car park in Leicester, England, she jumps at the chance. Perhaps here she will find the evidence she has been searching for.

Instead, Jayne finds a silver boar artifact that when held in her hands, somehow transports her back in time to the fifteenth-century. In the next instance she finds herself in the middle of a chaotic medieval camp, and soon finds herself face to face with the flesh and blood man she has spent years studying. Jayne must learn to navigate the dangers of the past in order to survive in King Richard III’s traveling army camp. After her path continues to cross with that of the king, she and Richard soon enter into a romantic relationship. But as she falls further in love, Jayne worries if she will ever return home again, and if she will be able to stomach the truth of Richard’s guilt or innocence. Is the man she is falling for indeed the infamous murderer maligned by history?

I was disappointed in Jayne as a heroine. I didn’t find her dynamic and didn’t understand her motives much of the time. I finished reading feeling as if I didn’t know her well enough, especially considering all the time we spent together. Her reactions to many of the events that befell her-specifically the whole falling through time thing-didn’t ring very true to me. I was hoping to read more about Jayne’s difficulties in adjusting to the fifteenth-century. Instead, she seemed to almost breeze through the cultural differences and to automatically fit in with those around her.

I did like the fact that the narrative switched back and forth between Jayne and Richard’s perspectives. Having them both as narrators definitely enhanced the emotional drama of the novel and heightened the stakes. I also became more invested in Richard’s fate, and like Jayne, hoped for a different outcome than the one we know from history. Ultimately however, I felt that all the characters could have been fleshed out more. I bought that Richard and Jayne were “in lust” with each other, but not that they were in love. Lacy didn’t manage to convince me that their’s was a great love story.

I think this novel suffered a bit from a reliance on “telling vs. showing.” The writing could’ve been stronger if Lacy had let readers observe some of the drama unfolding instead of simply having her characters relay information. Some of the dialogue felt rather stilted as well. Along the same lines, I thought The Medievalist was lacking a bit in descriptive elements. I would have loved to see even more detailed descriptions of the settings and enhanced historical details. There were also some unanswered questions, particularly in regards to the time travel.

The prose was nothing special, but the plot was engaging enough to hold my interest throughout. There’s a good balance of history, mystery, and romance; and enough drama to keep this a page-turning read. The ending-although a tad cliché-was satisfying.

Overall, I found The Medievalist to be an entertaining-if not noteworthy-read. This book had potential but was lacking the depth needed to make it a great read. I did find it fun to escape to the fifteenth-century for a few hours and this was an easy book to breeze through. Readers who enjoy time-slip novels, historical fiction, and the medieval period may find something to appreciate in this novel as well.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

**A huge thank you to NetGalley and City Owl press for the opportunity to read and review this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

At first I thought, another historic time travel book. But, I was taken in by the characters and swept into the 15th century. Anne-Marie Lacy surprised me at each turn.

I'm giving this book the benefit of the doubt with 4 stars. I'd say it was a 3.5, really. In sum, it's Outlander with a five hundred year gap, instead of two hundred years. I enjoyed the writing; the descriptions were fun. Starting with the discovery of Richard III's remains in that car park in Leicester was great, because I studied abroad there that year. It was an easy read; three hours or so. It covered a lot of ground; more than a year in the 15th century (1482-4). All that said, it needed to be fleshed out more. Why did the silver boar only work for her? Would it bring her back so she could live that time over and over again? What else motivated Talbott? And Bess? There were a lot of characters that were only half way fleshed out, and there should either have been fewer characters that were the focus, or the book should have been longer to flesh out all the characters that were in it. The plot seemed to move at an ok pace; not real fast, but not snail's pace either. About the timing, my complaint is that the author skipped months to move the plot along, and while I understand that for length's sake, she couldn't articulate every single day, there should have been more than there was, because it felt more like the woman had been there for a month or two, not close to two years. I did enjoy the main character as a general rule; she did fall in love awfully fast though. She didn't whine much. I wanted more about how she adjusted to life in the 1480's though. That element was sorely lacking, I thought. Overall, good book. There's not many out there about Richard III, and especially not that put him in a decent light (he's the one that supposedly killed his nephews in the Tower, if you didn't know), so that part of the story was interesting and almost playful. There was an element of history being changed, which I enjoyed less so, but it's livable.

I am voluntarily submitting my honest review after receiving an ARC of this ebook from NetGalley.

This is a fascinating, engaging novel that starts with the discovery of Richard III's body in a parking lot in an archaeological dig in modern-day London and one woman's quest to rehabilitate the former king's legacy. This novel adds to the body of works that seeks to portray Richard III as a much maligned and misunderstood figure, wrongly accused of murder and usurpation of the throne and cast him in a new light. The characters are well-rounded and complex, alive with human emotion, complicated motivations and unique personalities. The chain of events they find themselves caught up in is a coil of deceptions, unintended consequences and seemingly foregone conclusions, but as in all time travel novels, the ultimate questions arise: can history be changed and if so, should it be? This novel is a fast, fun read that devotees of the Wars of the Roses will definitely enjoy.

Richard III is a figure who has long interested me. While I love the Shakespeare plays (in which Richard gets some great lines) I have never committed to the black legend those works portray. Non-fiction texts present a different picture of Richard, and I've always believed that the truth is somewhere in the grey area between the two schools of thought. As such, the premise of this book appealed to me as soon as I saw it listed on NetGalley. Overall, I found The Medievalist to be an enjoyable and page-turning tale. How the time travel works is never explained, but that's probably better than getting caught in a mess of trying to account for it. Jayne was an interesting character, and I enjoyed Lacy's well-rounded portrayal of Richard. Her explanation regarding the missing princes is also satisfying. One thing that almost ruined the story for me, though, was the appearance of one of my pet peeves: I could care less. I never understand how this gets past editors, even in the US where it seems to be a common mistake. I find it so jarring that it pulled me completely out of the story and it took me several pages to stop thinking about it and return to the characters. That aside, this was a fun and gripping read that should appeal to historical fiction lovers.

Excellent! Engaging a page turner.