Here is not the place for new readers to jump into the A Stitch in Time series. Old readers won’t find much to recommend it either, since this is a pretty weak book. A Turn of the Tide has some pirate derring-do going on, but there’s not much danger in the air.

There is a “stitch” in time. This stitch is located in Thorne Manor in North Yorkshire, behind a locked door. Three women, so far, have discovered it; Bronwyn Dale used it to travel back in time from the twentieth century to the nineteenth as a child, and found a playmate who would become her husband, William. She stayed in the modern world, was widowed, but crossed time to find William again; now they hop between centuries with their daughters in tow. Rosalind, the wife of William’s best friend, accidentally ends up in modern-day America for four years.

Now author Miranda Hastings – Rosalind’s sister – has decided to embark upon an adventure of her own by heading through the stitch, hoping totravel forward to the modern world as Rosalind did. Fortunately – or unfortunately – for her, she goes back in time instead.

She comes face to face with the ghost haunting the manor, Nicolas – Nico – Dupress, a privateer and Robin Hood type. Together they try to figure out if Nico can make his way to her time, how to get him out of trouble – and if their love can last.

A Turn of the Tide is told in a flat, workmanlike way. Nico and Miranda love French poetry, and they come up against some rather fearsome odds, but there’s no sense that they’re ever in danger of meeting their makers here. Everything is handled smoothly, and the attraction between them is too instant to allow for much spark or conflict.

Of the two of them, Niko is the more interesting solely due to his profession. Miranda is every hyperconfident novelist who would totally really slay as a lady pirate because of the effectiveness of her research. The flat dryness of the prose makes all of this a chore to read.

The end result is a novel that’s less than enchanting. A Turn of the Tide proffers up some big promises but it never manages to sparkle to life in a way that makes its enchanting premise sing.