One Enchanted Evening by Lynn Kurland

Montgomery de Piaget attracts responsibilities like blossoms lure bees. Where other knights have bonny brides, laughing children, and noble quests, he has the task of rebuilding the most dilapidated castle in all of England. A bit of magic might aid him- if ony he still believed in that sort of thing.

When Pippa Alexander is invited to England to provide costumes for an upscale party, she jumps at the chance to showcase her own line of fairytale-inspired designs. And even her sister's decision to act as Fairy Queen can't crush Pippa's hope that this time, she'll wind up wearing the glass slippers. Not that she believes in fairy tales, or magic that whispers along the hallways of an honest-to-goodness medieval castle...

But the castle is full of more than cobwebs, and danger lurks in unexpected places. And only time will tell if Montgomery and Pippa can overcome these obstacles to find their own happily ever after...

Lynn Kurland writes solid, likable heroes and heroines – Persephone and Montgomery were no exception. Pippa is a grounded, down-on-her luck theater costumer with dreams of entering the world of haute couture. She could have made it to England without ghostly interference, so I'm confused as to why Kurland had to involve an apparition from a previous book.

After Pippa seeks to give her career a bump in England at her sister, Tess', medieval shindig, she and her other sister, Cinderella, stumble into a time gate. The location of the gate could have been better; I could see a bunch of people stumbling into another time as they walk across the main castle bridge.

Cindi should have been the main antagonist. She could have continued to cause more glorious trouble for Pippa in the past by allying herself with Montgomery's angry cousins, and then plunged forward in time to be the source of more mischief.

Cinderella's end was still satisfying, and the pacing in the second half of the book quickened as Pippa and Montgomery spent more time together. Even though Montgomery should have had just as much to do as lord of a keep as James McCleod did in A Dance Through Time, Kurland's “okay” books are still ten times better than most books in this genre.