An Enchanted Spring

Unexpected love is at the heart of Scanlon’s vivid second time-travel romance (after The Winter Laird). Aidan MacWilliam, a 15th-century Irish warrior living in the present day, decides to help his distant relative, Colin O’Rourke, hire a PR person to expand the family business. Aidan travels from Boston to New York, meets with Emmaline Perkins of Price Publicity, and asks her to be his proxy at an auction of medieval artifacts, where a sword he once owned is now up for sale. Emma hesitates, since her firm is involved with the auction, but after she is unjustly fired from Price for allegedly leaking private information about a client, she agrees to represent Aidan. When Aidan learns that Emma’s ex-fiancé wants to kill her, he longs to protect her, but the only place where he believes she will be truly safe is back in the past with him. Romantic tension between Aidan and Emma increases even as she declares her interest in returning to her own time and struggles to see the romantic intentions beneath his proprietary behavior. The angst and simmering sensuality in the relationship between Emma and Aidan keep the pages turning. Agent: Victoria Lowes, Bent Agency. (May)