#19 – Kathrina Baker

Kathrina Baker is a brilliant but shy seventeen year old who’s intelligence and determination landed her with a full scholarship and early admission to a prestigious college. But her freshman year is turning out to be a little overwhelming and she hides herself is fairy tales, romances, and fantastical legends.  One day she’s browsing through an old, half-hidden used bookstore and the storekeeper helps her find an interesting old book about the legend of Acmara, the Lost Kingdom.

The book changes her life and within days she is contacted by an old wizard and a princess who looks just like her offers to trade places with her, sending her back into the romantic times of 16^th century where she gets to be a wealthy princess and marry a handsome prince.  To Kathrina it’s a dream come true.

Of course once she gets there the realities quickly set in with no modern convinces like electricity and indoor plumbing.  The prince is very handsome and charming at first, but she quickly realizes that he’s actually rather vain and selfish, and that women have no voice in 1511.  Her intelligence, which has always been her saving grace is worthless in a woman and her future husband insists she “stop thinking” when they get married.  Men think, women breed.  Men protect women and women take care of men.  Once she realizes how miserable her life would be if she stayed there and got married, she tries to get Catherine to switch back, but Catherine is having too much fun to leave the future.

With no hope of returning she decides to make the best of things and ends up discovering the most intelligent person is actually her bodyguard, Jasper Brown.  He figures out she isn’t Catherine very quickly and helps her navigate the through the deceptions and dangers of life at a royal court.  He becomes her best friend, they respect each other, and actually start to fall in love (of course).  In the end she has to fight to save the kingdom she’s actually started to like from disappearing into the mists of time and becoming forever lost.

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