I picked up this novel because the author will be a key note guest at a writers conference that I'm attending in August and I wanted to sample her writing. I was pulled in from the very first pages, very intrigued by this story of a young writer, Carrie, who names her main character after one of her ancestors, Sophia Paterson, and writes of her life in Scotland in the early 1700s. But the writing flows so easily that she feels like she's channeling Sophia and gets a bit freaked out when she will write scenes and only later confirm their accuracy through research. At the same time, Carrie is getting to know her kind landlord and his two sons. Much like Sophia in her fiction, Carrie must negotiate her way diplomatically. When it becomes obvious that both of the sons are courting her, will she be able to choose one brother over the other without causing family ructions?
When I went to my library catalogue to choose a Kearsley novel, I noted that all of the titles that the library possesses are in use, some with long waiting lists. That's generally a good sign, although popular books are not always necessarily to my liking. I do, however, understand her appeal, as she skillfully alternates between the past and the present, renders Scots speech clearly, without being annoying, and mirrors the lives of the two women main characters without getting too matchy-matchy.
Fans of Outlander and Diana Gabaldon would no doubt also enjoy this book, with its romances, past and present. I confess that I much prefer The Winter Sea to that series. The writing is much more to my taste and the editing is much better, so thus far I have found no egregious bird errors! (An eternal complaint of mine regarding Gabaldon, who doesn't seem to realize that Scotland and North America have different bird life.) Indeed, if Ms. Kearsley has made any historical errors, I wouldn't know, but as she is a former museum curator, I would expect her to be professionally accurate. Having worked briefly in the museum environment myself, I have witnessed how much the staff enjoy research and connecting people to history. (Indeed, in her afterword, the author specifies where she deviated from the official record and why.)
Despite being a reluctant romance reader, I found this book easy to read and very engaging. The suspension of disbelief required by the fictional author's “genetic memory" of her ancestor may be a large ask of some readers (it sounded ridiculous when I attempted to describe it to a cousin), but it flowed naturally on the page and was never labelled as paranormal. It was just a thing that happened. I'll admit to crying at a couple of junctures, but so much of Scots history is sad that it's difficult to avoid sad situations.
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