Knight of Runes review

Knight of Runes by Ruth A. Casie, published in 2011 by Carina Press, was a frustrating book. The premise is that scholar Rebeka gets sucked back in time from the year 2011 to the year 1605 where she meets and falls in love with Lord Arik while trying to find her way back to her own time. Sounds great, right? Yeah, it didn't really work.

Rebeka is supposed to be smart and strong - she has no problem whatsoever mouthing off to the local lord knowing full well that she's in society where men rule with an iron hand. But she refuses to stand up to another woman. It makes absolutely no sense. Plus, she is supposedly loved by all the common villagers but she never actually interacts with them so why would they care one way or another?

Arik might be even worse than Rebeka. He's supposed to be this great lord - intelligent, chivalrous, fair, etc. But he's a moron and an asshole. He refuses to listen to anyone if they don't agree with him and while he ignores or reprimands Rebeka every time she speaks, he lets his female cousin walk all over him and his people. It makes no sense and makes me completely unsympathetic toward him.

So between the characters not being coherent and Arik treating Rebeka worse than anyone else, I'm supposed to believe they randomly fall in love? Um, no. It just doesn't work. There's no believable chemistry between them. I'm willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to time travel but not when it comes to two people falling in love the way these two supposedly did.

There are other issues with the ending and the characters but suffice it to say, Knight of Runes was not a book I enjoyed and not one I'd recommend to any reader who would have issues with the above things the way I did.

Synopsis

England, 1605

When Lord Arik, a druid knight, finds Rebeka Tyler wandering his lands without protection, he swears to keep her safe. But Rebeka can take care of herself. When Arik sees her clash with a group of attackers using a strange fighting style, he’s intrigued.

Rebeka is no ordinary seventeenth-century woman—she’s travelled back from the year 2011, and she desperately wants to return home. She poses as a scholar sent by the king to find out what’s killing Arik’s land. But as she works to decode the ancient runes that are the key to solving this mystery and sending her home, she finds herself drawn to the charismatic and powerful Arik.

As Arik and Rebeka fall in love, someone in Arik’s household schemes to keep them apart, and a dark druid with a grudge prepares his revenge. To defeat him, Arik and Rebeka must combine their skills. Soon Rebeka will have to decide whether to return to the future or trust Arik with the secret of her time travel and her heart.