A theft of antique lace and an American student visiting England are the triggers for a tale of time travelling ghosts and romance. Samantha, who has a degree in textiles due to her domineering mother, manages to sneak out of the family home and go to England to house-sit. Unfortunately for her Theodore, a young man of her acquaintance, has followed her and insists on giving her a guided tour with Samantha paying for the taxis.

ROSES IN MOONLIGHT presents us with Scottish ghosts who travel through time, and a man named Derrick who works with them to restore stolen antiques to their owners. There are a lot of characters from previous books, and they have long conversations about actors and previous exploits. Not having read the earlier instalments I could not get into this aspect and I also could not work up much concern about some stolen lace. Focusing on Samantha helped; she tours a castle in the centre of Newcastle, which is in northern England near the Scottish lowlands, and notices a man dressed as an Elizabethan re-enactor - only nobody else can see him, and he gets up to mischief with Theodore. For some reason Derrick thinks Samantha is a textile thief and follows her around as she visits York, then heads for London.

Samantha is not only a doormat for her pushy parents, she has taken degrees in subjects that don't interest her and wears polyester although she likes textiles. I don't know anyone who wears unpleasantly scratchy polyester. So she's a contradiction in terms, and when Derrick speaks to her in broken German, she replies in better German. She's spotted him following her and doesn't know what to do about it; breaking the cardinal rule of shadowing he's followed her by himself for three days. But that's not against the law, is it? And she's a stranger in England.

Lynn Kurland has written several time-travel romances and this book may delight her fans, but I did find it hard to get into, reading as a standalone. Her settings are filled with copious detail and she gets into the minds and motivations of her characters, however there is not much action and she refers to unhackable phones and other gimmicks. I liked the concepts she presents in ROSES IN MOONLIGHT and I might read it again after trying her earlier works.

Book Summary

From the author of Dreamspinner and A Dance Through Time...

ESCAPING INTO THE PAST… Derrick Cameron, antiquities dealer and adventurer, is furious when the priceless piece of Elizabethan lace he's been pursuing slips right by him, in the improbable custody of a mousy textile historian! But he will retrieve it, even if it means dragging a very skeptical, albeit adorable, Samantha back in time with him. After all, he is used to living dangerously—in whatever century he finds himself. Conscientious Samantha Drummond never dreamed the package her British employer gave her would lead her into places an ordinary gal should never go—like Elizabethan England!—or throw her into the company of one extremely attractive, but highly suspect Highlander who not only thinks she's a thief, but insists on involving her in his mad schemes to retrieve his stolen treasure. CAN LEAD YOU STRAIGHT INTO YOUR FUTURE… Trapped first in Elizabethan England, then caught in a web of modern-day intrigues, Samantha and Derrick are forced into an unlikely alliance by peril, never imagining that what they're forging is a timeless love....