A review by elmont
The Fortress of Time by Mariah Stone

5.0

**Post-reading note: Mariah Stone is relaunching this series with new names, covers and book descriptions. She stated this in Booksprout. This book is "Viking's Captive", which WAS named "The Fortress of Time". It's also going to be book five, not book one. BUT these seem to be all standalone! Just wanted to make this note mostly for future me when the books come out (which will be within the next few weeks *happy dancing*!), so that I can add these reviews to those books on GR!**


I want to start off by staying I received this book via Booksprout in return for my honest review.

If you look back on my "want to read shelf" you would see the book series "Called by a Viking" and the fact that I've wanted to read this series for so long but never pulled the trigger and bought the book is crazy! So I'm so happy that I was able to read the start of the series because of Booksprout!

Okay on to the review.

This is the first viking book I've read and it blew me away. I think this is a great book for people who haven't went into the historical era of vikings. Mariah Stone pulls you into this world without making it too confusing. I say "too confusing" because the viking terms are so detailed that it is very easy to get lost. In this first book, I didn't get lost much!!

This is also my first time traveler romance book. I honestly didn't know it was a thing until I found this series lol And before I read this book I had this feeling I'd think it was cheesy or too out there to feel like a romance book. But Stone changed that perspective for me REAL QUICK!

Do I think time traveling is a far fetched thing? Yes. Do I think it would be hard to create a book about it and it be not too off the wall? Yes. But when I tell you Stone did an amazing job with this story. The details for both the past and future scenes were so good. I didn't feel like I was loosing anything among the two times.

And the relationship she created with the fmc and mmc was beautiful! Again I thought there would be something off with the two of them being from different times, but Stone made it feel seamless. Well as seamless as she could when two people have no idea what the heck is going on lol

I found that I enjoyed the two characters slowly coming to the realization that the fmc was from the future. And that they both weren't too stubborn when it came to talking about it. I guess it comes from my love a good communication skills lol

I loved that both characters were strong in their personalities. I fell in love with both of them and loved how they BOTH were able to figure out how to see one another's side of things.

I feel like I could go on and on when it comes to this book. I seriously loved it! And I can't wait to dive into the next one.

Again, thank you Mariah Stone via Booksprout of this ARC!!