After Madeline is accidentally pushed off of a train platform, she finds herself waking up in 1675 in the midst of a battlefield in King Philip's War. With colonists dead around her and a bloody gash on her forehead, Madeline - known in colonial times as Abigail - is the only survivor, but she's certain that she must be dreaming. How can she have fallen over 300 years back in time?

However, for someone who has woken up in a different time period she's remarkably chill. Almost running away within the first couple of days, she soon gives up and settles down, blindly accepting the wisdom of a local woman who claims that she is a Messenger. Next thing you know, Madeline is falling in instalove with a colonist called Samuel, learning how to tend fires and helping her 'cousin' Elizabeth with running the schoolhouse. All's well that ends well.

But it's not quite that easy. Next thing you know Madeline is being stalked by a Hunter who knows she is a Messenger and is desperate to get revenge. Despite the fact that Madeline has had no training at all, she - SPOILER ALERT - manages to miraculously save her life by teleporting back to modern day times, where she bumps into modern day Samuel and seconds later is confronted by the man who is hunting her... And then the book just ends.

Honestly, I was tempted to give The Messenger three stars because even though it was a bit cliched I really enjoyed the concept and I thought the plot was nice and absorbing, but the last few chapters just really annoyed me. The book starts with a flashforward and I'd been looking forward to finding out how Madeline found herself in such a situation, but it didn't feel authentic when it got there. It also doesn't help that Madeline makes it sound as though she's been trained as a Messenger, when in all reality she's only been given a couple of pieces of advice - I wouldn't even call them 'lessons' as such, and as a reader you still have no real knowledge of how Messengers work (or Hunters or Healers, who are touched upon very briefly).

The ending was rushed, and leaving it on such a hammy cliffhanger irritated me, particularly as it ends under 75% into the NetGalley version which I was reading - the last 25% is a preview of one of Pamela DuMond's other books, and it isn't even a sampler of the second book in the Mortal Beloved series! I felt a little cheated and was really glad that I hadn't spent money on this book, and it's certainly made me think twice about continuing on with the series: these books are short enough, without making the last fifty pages part of a completely different story.