Timetravel to the barbary coast "Captive" by Brenda Joyce
Sometimes you are in a museum and you look at a painting thinking "What a very handsome man that guys was. Too bad he is dead for centuries". I did last week. In this novel that is exactly what Alexandra, a student in naval history does. Somehow however she has the feeling the ghost of the man talks to her. (I just looked the guy up on Wikipedia. If he had talked to me I had committed myself to an asylum. But hey this is a fantasy novel. A timetravel fantasy novel).
Alexandra travels all the way to Ghadaffi ruled Libya to find our what happened to Xavier the man in the painting. When she is in Tripoli she faints and waked up in the early years of the 19th century.
The story is enthralling but there were four elements that annoyed me:
--- minor spoiler alert ---
1) The book is written during the Ghadaffi-era and it is obvious that the American writer had not that much sympathy for Arabs. There are only two people in the whole story that are mentioned in a positive light: a eunuch in the harem and the first wife of the ruler. For the rest people are depicted as being very cruel. And what is wrong with 'Being almost too handsome for a man?'

2) Alexandra knows Xavier will be executed because he had dealings with the wife of the ruler so what does Alexandra do when the son of the barshaw marries here? Exactly: try to contact Xavier all the time in person while a message could be send via her slave. Why put someone deliberately in danger? Someone you do not know personally.
3) Oh and the plot that her husband allows her a year to mourn is quite silly. One in those countries mourning was three months and two why would a guy in that position allow such a long period.
4) The sexscenes are quite explicit when they are in bed together but during one bad occasion we have to guess what happened.
Now it looks like I did not like the book: I do. It has you reading it for hours. And when you look things up the whole naval part is nicely done. It is just that the leading lady is stupid :)
Who wants to sniff up some historical fact have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
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