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Informationen zum Autor Judith O'Brien is a romance author. She previously worked as an editor at several publications, such as Self , when she discovered her love for romance and writing. She is now the author of numerous titles, including Timeless Love , Maiden Voyage , The Forever Bride , and Once Upon a Rose . She also contributed to A Gift of Love , alongside Judith McNaught and Jude Deveraux. Klappentext In her acclaimed Maiden Voyage, Judith O'Brien spun "an extraordinary, enchanting tale" (Rendezvous) of a love that crossed the centuries. Now, in a story that tingles with magic and wit, she sends a delightful contemporary heroine on a star-crossed quest in a long-ago land that may be morethan just the stuff of fairy tales...Madison Avenue advertising executive Julie Gaffney is on the lookout for a good man and a love that will last forever. But heroes are few and far between in New York City, and -- after one too many disastrous blind dates -- Julie hasall but given up. Then, while chaperoning a children's birthday party in a suburban medieval theme restaurant, Julie suddenly falls into a cold faint...and awakens in fabled Camelot, face-to-face with the greatest hero of them all -- the legendary Lancelot.Behind the suit of armor is a man of deep passion and sensuous masculinity, a loyal knight who is about to be ensnared in a web of royal deception that will tarnish his name for all time. Entranced by his azure eyes and mesmerizing voice, Julie realizes she has a mission to fulfill. Only she can divert the tragedy that dooms Camelot...and Lancelot. But in saving the kingdom and the knight she has come to love, Julie puts her own heart in great peril... Leseprobe Chapter One The New York City subway car -- that great metropolitan equalizer -- accepted its riders grudgingly. Faces were indistinct, features blurred, but no doubt the crowd included convicted felons, a couple of lawyers, an actor racing to an audition, perhaps a murderer or two, a young mother with a howling toddler, all packed into a graffiti-covered tin car. And into this cocktail of humanity was tossed Julie Gaffney, all-around nice girl, the sort of person who pays her bills on time and never misses a dental appointment. She did not blend in with the other passengers. Julie Gaffney stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, with her fresh-faced good looks, her crisply ironed blouse, and her pleasant expression. It was the pleasant expression above all else that made her so incongruous on a Thursday evening at rush hour, that set her apart from the other commuters on an unseasonably hot spring day, the tail end of an early heat wave. The other passengers stood as one blank-eyed entity, briefcases carving a path past the lucky ones already grasping a coveted pole, Macy's and Lord & Taylor shopping bags scratching arms and hands and occasionally faces with remorseless pointy paper edges. Julie Gaffney entered, her own briefcase poised before her like a lance in a commuting joust. "Brooklyn bound F train," droned a crackly speaker, words pouring forth only as alternate syllables. "Next stop, Forty-second." The announcement was indecipherable to the unlucky riders who actually needed the information. It sounded like a muzzy horn blast with inflections, the grown-up voices in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Only those with an attuned ear, who already knew what was going to be said, could distinguish the words with any degree of accuracy. "Does this go to Queens?" a middle-aged woman clutching a map shouted, panic rising in her voice. "No," Julie said, and immediately the other riders shot her curious stares. There is an unspoken rule on the subway: do not react. Not to the one-armed beggar, not to the man selling yo-yos, or the guy with the paper bag on his head claiming to be an alien. Do not react to anyone. With defiance that could only be described as pleasant...
