Books to Love: A Winter Respite
Have you got the winter blues? It’s not wholly uncommon to encounter such a condition in the bleak, grey winter between January and March. Thankfully, the winter recess is coming here in Tennessee. And the surest shot to chase the blues away is with an excellent book. And, because it’s winter, I have one to recommend today that captures the frigidity of the climate and tempers it with the warmth of a great story.
I tend to gravitate to books that take place in two time periods. Case and point, The Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig. The modern day heroine, Eloise Kelly travels from the hallowed halls of Harvard to England on a quest to uncover the identity of the Pink Carnation for her dissertation. What ensues is a rollick ride through a dozen books where her characters uncovers a bevy of floral spies, each with their own story to tell, and each story taking her closer to the conclusion she so desperately seeks. (For more about this series and other books by Lauren Willig, check out these posts: Lines to Love: The Lauren Willig Edition and Lines to Love: The Scourge of Frenchies Everywhere.)
In Susanna Kearsley’s The Winter Sea, the modern day heroine is Carrie McClelland, an author who has hit a brick wall where inspiration is concerned until she follows a lead down an historical rabbit trail to the ruins of Slains Castle in Cruden Bay, Scotland. There she encounters visions and premonitions from the past that confirm in her the necessity of staying there to flesh out her book. However, the longer she delves into her book, recording the images, conversations, and visions that she has, the more she begins to learn that these seeming ideas that are coming to her are really true events that took place in the past. There’s no way she can know the things that she knows, or see the things that she sees without some sort of supernatural influence. For one, she’s certain that she’s never encountered any of these historical details in her research, and two, many of the details she’s learning are far too personal to have been recorded in the annals of history to begin with. So personal in fact, they’ve been secret for generations. So how is it that she knows them?
While Carrie’s story unfolds in the present, the story she’s unearthing simultaneously unfolds in the past. The year 1708 to be exact. When Carrie was trying to hammer out a novel in France that wouldn’t come together, she happened on a tidbit of information that the Jacobites tried to launch a near successful landing of King James on Scottish soil near Slains Castle. That’s what takes Carrie to Scotland. But when she arrives and walks the crumbling ruins of the castle, she sees visions of a woman and hears her voice so clearly, she’s immediately captivated by her and knows she’s the heroine of her novel.
She names her Sophia Paterson, who is actually an ancestor of Carrie’s, albeit one she knows little about other than the fact she came from Scotland by way of Ireland. However, the more Sophia’s voice and past come alive to Carrie, the more she’s learning of her own ancestry.
Susanna Kearsley is expert at interweaving brilliant historical research with cutting edge scientific theory. The source of Carrie’s ability in The Winter Sea is chocked up to genetic memory. And while genetic memory, by current scientific definition, is not quite what Kearsley develops it as, so little is truly known about this phenomenon that I can suspend the discrepancy in the zone of ‘what if’ very easily.
Both heroines are entirely relatable. The way Carrie’s process is laid out and how we go through it with her brought me completely into the story. Sophia was the same. From the moment we meet her on the road to Cruden Bay until she disembarks for Ireland, each step she takes, each decision she follows has a perfect sense to it.
I appreciate the honesty with which Susanna Kearsley unfolds the past. While Sophia and a bevy of women who surround her are from the early 18th century when the duties of noble women were restricted to more rigid roles, Kearsley does not forget that the human spirit is indomitable. Her women are strong, opinionated and actually effect change in their time- not unlike women today. We must not forget that women have always affected change in spite of the strictures placed upon them.
The women in The Winter Sea, past and present, harbor the respect of influential men who weigh their opinions before making decisions. I appreciate it when an author gives scope to history in this way because it provides the flesh and muscle and sinew to an often skeletal recounting of events.
Another aspect of The Winter Sea that I thoroughly enjoyed was that it was tremendously atmospheric. Kearsley’s descriptions are so real, you can almost taste the salt of the coast and feel the spittle of the cold sea on your skin. When Sophia and her hero- who I’ll leave unnamed because I so enjoyed the surprise of their unfolding love story- stroll the rocky coastline, I saw it with perfect detail. When Carrie found her cottage nestled on the treacherous coastline road, I saw that humble abode clearly, too. Even it’s kitchen and metered heater and living room came alive for me. As I read this book during a very humid summer, I found Kearsley’s atmospheric writing immersive enough that I could dismiss the sultry summer and actually feel that cold winter sea that is so pivotal to the storyline. The tempestuous weather along the rugged coast of Cruden Bay perfectly mirrors the turmoil that the characters of the novel go through, past and present.
I particularly loved how Susanna Kearsley ended this novel. As a writer myself, it was the ending I would have written, only she did it far better that I would have done.
If you’re looking for a book that transports you, this is it. If you want something that explores the supernatural, allowing you to connect dots from a more scientific perspective and explore the ‘what if’ factor, this book’s for you. If you’re an historical fiction buff who appreciates exquisitely researched and rendered plot lines, The Winter Sea is a book you’ll not want to miss. And, if you’re just someone who enjoys a great story that has all the elements of what makes life rich- adventure, love, loyalty, and honor- then head to your local library or bookstore and get yourself a copy of Susanna Kearsley’s The Winter Sea.
And, on the note of books, what are you reading this week, dear readers?
