The Winter Sea

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

On the library stacks: Adult Fiction
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Carrie McClelland is a Canadian author of historical fiction. She moves to a cottage on the Scottish coast for the winter so she can do research and write her new novel.  On a whim, she decides to base her main character on one of her Scottish ancestors that was alive during the Jacobite uprisings, in the early 1700s.

Everyone in the town where Carrie is writing is very friendly. Her landlord (who is written in a Scottish dialect called Doric) has two sons who seem to take a particular interest in Carrie. What seems weird to Carrie though, is how her life and her art seem to intersect. She finds herself writing things not only similar to what is happening in her own life, but she also realizes that she has an uncanny ability to accurately portray the history of her ancestors without any actual knowledge of the details until after she has written it down.

This is just really solid historical fiction. The author does not mess around very much with the historical figures. Her research is impeccable and I found myself delving even more into the facts after I finished reading. I liked the perspective shift between past and present and felt it kept the story moving along nicely. I read this on my Kindle and I was surprised to find out how many pages it is in print. I finished it in about two days. I also just found out Susanna is writing is "sort-of-sequel" to this book right now. I will definitely be checking that out when the time comes. 

Also reviewed by: Fuzzy Cricket ~ Tribute Books ~ Books, Belles, & Beaux ~ Your link here?
Source: Library Download