23 February 2012

BOOK REVIEW


by Susanna Kearsley

I became totally absorbed reading The Winter Sea.  Set in north-east Scotland, it tells the story of Carrie McClelland, an author who starts writing a historical romance using her ancestor, Sophia McClelland and the exiled King James of Scotland as its background.  The reader is swept back in time to 1708, at the height of James’s attempt to regain his crown from England, and Sophia’s entanglement in this affair.

Carrie, settles into her rented cottage in the historic village of Cruden Bay where she finds herself surrounded by images of the past, not the least of which is Slains Castle, in 1708, a Jacobite stronghold, and the focal point in her book.  It’s not long, however, before the character in Carrie’s story start to take over her writing with surprising results.

Slains Castle today
If you enjoy reading history mixed with fiction and a smattering of  romance as well as mystery, you will not be disappointed.

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