Review: The Winter Sea, Susanna Kearsley

In the spring of 1708, an invading Jacobite fleet of French and Scottish soldiers nearly succeeded in landing the exiled James Stewart in Scotland to reclaim his crown.
Now, Carrie McClelland hopes to turn that story into her next bestselling novel. Settling herself in the shadow of Slains Castle, she creates a heroine named for one of her own ancestors and starts to write.
But when she discovers her novel is more fact than fiction, Carrie wonders if she might be dealing with ancestral memory, making her the only living person who knows the truth-the ultimate betrayal-that happened all those years ago, and that knowledge comes very close to destroying her..

Susanna Kearsley studied politics and international development at university, and has worked as a museum curator.
Her first novel Mariana won the prestigious Catherine Cookson Literary Prize and launched her writing career. Susanna continued her mix of the historical and paranormal in novels The Splendour Falls, Named of the Dragon, Shadowy Horses and Season of Storms.
Susanna Kearsley also writes classic-style thrillers under the name of Emma Cole.

I am easily confused. Give me multiple points of view or stories that run trough one another and I will probably get lost. This book does just that. There is the now with Carrie and the than with Sophia but I did not get lost one bit in this book. I was picked up by the flow and was able just to read and never putting people in the wrong period or place.
Both stories have their own things I liked. In the Now Carrie was giving a lot of insight on how it is to be a writer, how research works and stuff like that. It was great to look over her shoulder while she was writing the book. The 1708 story was heavy on history lessons and from a period I do not know that much details about so it was great to read those too.
Character wise Sophia and Carrie were very much alike with clear influences from the time they lived in though. Both knew very well what they wanted but did not always have the guts to really stand up for themselves unless the situation was asking for it. Still even though other characters in their surrounding had strong personalities I never felt as if they were overruled by them.

The Winter Sea
Author: Susanna Kearsley
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Pages: 544
Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 1402241372
ISBN-13: 9781402241376
Series: Slains
Sourcebooks: various

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