The Winter Sea

When I first saw the length of this book, I was a bit daunted, but once I started, I could hardly put it down. Author Susanna Kearsley tells a story within a story, Her protagonist, Carrie McClelland, is a successful writer of historical novels and has come to the northwest coast of Scotland, both to visit her agent, Jane, who has a new baby, and also to pursue her research on a book she wants to write about the Jacobite effort in the spring of 1708 to bring the younger James back from exile in France to take his rightful place as their king. Carrie decides on Jane's advice to tell the story from a woman's viewpoint and so Carrie creates Sophia, an orphan who has been taken in by a distant relative, the Countess of Slains Castle, which Carrie has chosen for the setting of her novel. In fact, Carrie has rented a cottage in the town closest to the ruins of that castle to inspire her writing. "The chapters are intermingled throughout the book with numerical designations such as chapter 1, 2, 3, etc. for the present and Roman numerals for the historical segments such as I, II, III, etc." (NY Journal of Books).

I love the way that the New York Review of Books opens their summary and review. "The Winter Sea ... is a creative tour de force. Sometimes an author catches lightning in a bottle, and Susanna Kearsley has done just that." They go on to conclude, "The title—The Winter Sea—is also quite moving. When Sophia is alone and worried that she will never see Moray [her husband] again, his Uncle Graeme reminds her that without the desolation of winter there can be no ever-renewing hope of spring. It is a hard lesson about accepting the bad in order to appreciate the good, but it is a lesson worth learning and relearning throughout life."

Similarly, the Historical Novel Society offers this praise, "Kearsley handles modern Scots dialects adroitly... Overall, skillful writing and research make The Winter Sea more historical novel than romance. Although Cassie’s choices are at times predictable, readers will not be disappointed in Sophia’s enthralling story. Highly recommended."