THE WINTER SEA

THE WINTER SEA by Susanna Kearsley was read for the What's in a Name 5 Challenge.

From Amazon.com:

History has all but forgotten...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...

I sent a copy of this book to a friend for Christmas and she raved about it.  When I saw I could get a free copy for the Kindle, I jumped at the chance.  I liked the book a lot, although maybe not quite as much as my friend did.

This was actually a book within a book - the book Carrie was writing and the story about Carrie as she was writing it.  Confusing?  Not really.  I actually enjoyed the "book" part better.  I knew very little of Scottish history, so it was fun to learn about it.  The author states that the characters and events are factual for the most part.

Note to person writing the above description:  The last part - "and that knowledge comes very close to destroying her..." - were you and I reading the same book?  I think you might have been stretching the truth there a wee bit!

This book fits the category - things you would see on a calendar - for the What's in a Name 5 Challenge.