THEN: A medieval noblewoman. A hot-headed Irish king. A brutal mercenary.

NOW: A haunted mural painter. A stumped FBI agent. A relentless serial killer.

How far would you go to fulfill your bloodcurdling ancient vow?

If not for “The Ghost”—her FBI husband’s gruesome case—Siena Forte’s life would have been perfect. But not when the D.C. serial killer is hunting women like her, and when her husband is so unsettled by this case, he refuses to discuss it. It’s a miracle her art career is thriving at all. And not only her career.

When Siena lands a medieval mural commission at the National Gallery of Art, she discovers a bizarre knack for astral projecting to her past life. In a lucky strike, her visions of love and prominence in medieval Ireland are just the creative inspiration she seeks.

What Siena doesn’t know is her vivid depiction of the past exposes her to someone she has met before—the serial killer, reborn in this century just like her. But when a vicious attack from the past reverberates into the present, Siena’s life unravels in a chilling parallel.

Silenced and alone, she discovers the true reason for her visions. They’re not the creative inspiration they seemed, but a harbinger of her centuries-old revenge vow, and the killer cannot be stopped until she fulfills it. But there is another person from the past with unfinished business—her husband. And another unwelcome déjà vu—their crumbling marriage, once again precipitated by the serial killer’s crime.

Does Siena have what it takes to carry out her ancient vow?

Vera Bell is the author of the time-travel romantic suspense trilogy Always & Forever, set in sixteenth-century Ireland and present-day United States. Book One, Through the Veneer of Time, is her debut novel. Besides being a writer, she is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two teenagers and one fur baby, a former commercial artist and boutique owner, and a member of the Historical Novel Society, Women's Fiction Writers Association, and Romance Writers of America. Her favorite place to write is on her porch, overlooking a pond lined with river birches and magnolias. The topics she never tires of are Ireland, past lives, and love that transcends time and space.

Physical. Sexual. Mental.
Crimes against women take different forms,
but the ultimate effect on the survivors is always the same: lasting damage.
How lasting?
Some women learn to live with it. Some do their best to cope and move on.
But for others, the only way out is through settling the score.
Even if it takes more than one lifetime.
Even if they don’t know it yet.
In this life, my name is Siena Forte Casey.
This is my story.

There is a serial killer on the loose in D.C, and her husband is on the case it is a gruesome one and the parallels to Sienna are eery. The killer is murdering young women and her husband refuses to talk to Sienna about the murders.

Sienna is an artist and is commissioned to do a medieval mural at The National Gallery of Art. The painting starts to resemble the dreams that she has been having. Are the dreams based on a past life, or just figments of her imagination? They are based in Ireland in medieval times and have a lot of elements of war. Soon Sienna is not able to tell whether the dreams are real or not.

Someone is out to get her, and more women die as the investigation goes on, Sienna realizes that it is her that the medieval king is after her husband. The story is told from Sienna's aspect but her husband also plays a big part. I loved the back and forth between medieval Ireland and to present.

I have always loved a time travel story, and this one is no exception. Well researched but with a warning about sexual abuse, so if this triggers you in any way please be advised. I really enjoyed this novel, as I do anything Irish, it is fun for a character to be brought back in time so this book was a great one for me.

I give it 5 stars and hope to read more by Vera Bell!