📖 Hist Fic Saturday ~ The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

 

On Hist Fic Saturday

Let's go back to ... 1707

Simon & Schuster
4 May 2022

Slains #1

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

1707

An ill-fated expedition for the New World left Sophia Paterson an orphan, cared for by her uncle. On his passing, a distant relative offers what Sophia longs for most: a home. Slains Castle, on the rugged Scottish coast, is much more comfortable than she is accustomed to. But danger is right around the corner, as rebels conspire to bring the exiled James Stewart to Scotland to reclaim his crown.

Present day

Enchanted by the ruins of the castle, Carrie McClelland hopes to turn this all-but-forgotten story into her next novel. Settling in the nearby village, she creates a heroine named after one of her ancestors and starts to write.

Discovering her novel contains more than she researched, Carrie wonders if this is ancestral memory – making her the only living person to know what truly happened all those years ago. With each new chapter she uncovers the secrets of the past in a sweeping tale of love, loyalty and ultimate betrayal.

📖 My Review ..

Reading The Winter Sea again has been a real trip down memory lane for me as I first read this time slip novel back in 2008 when it was first published. I am thrilled to see that it has been reissued with a delightfully evocative cover all ready for a new audience to discover the magic of this talented author's historical fiction.

When best-selling novelist, Carrie McClelland finds that she is lost, in Scotland, on her way to Peterhead, she is inadvertently drawn to the ancient Slains Castle at Cruden Bay. After visiting her friend, and literary agent, Carrie is compelled to return to Cruden Bay where she takes up temporary residence in order to write the novel which is clamouring inside her head. With the pull of history behind her, Carrie finds that the story she sees, and hears, so clearly is that of her ancestor, Sophia Paterson whose involvement at Slains Castle, in 1707, will take her deep into the heart of the first Jacobite conspiracy. 

Weaving the history of the time into a creative time slip novel is what this author does best and The Winter Sea has all the necessary ingredients for both an intriguing historical adventure and a poignant love story. Touching on the complex subject of ancestral memory also gives the book an added sense of mystery which runs like a silken thread throughout the novel.

History, betrayal, intrigue and danger all combine to make The Winter Sea an unforgettable novel and a worthy start to the trilogy. 

*Just a note to say this novel has also been previously published as Sophia's Secret.

🍷Best Read with .. a wee dram of good Scottish whisky

About the Author

Susanna Kearsley is a New York Times best-selling Canadian novelist of historical fiction and mystery, as well as thrillers under the pen name Emma Cole. In 2014, she received Romance Writers of America's RITA Award for Best Paranormal Romance for The Firebird.

Twitter @SusannaKearsley #TheWinterSea

@simonschusterUK