Sophia's Secret Paperback – 22 Sept. 2008

This story follows best-selling author Carrie McLelland as she writes a novel set around the failed 1708 Jacobite rebellion. Her heroine, Sophia, is her own ancestor and Carrie begins to develop an uncanny ability to guess what is happening in Sophia's life.I bought this book because I read another Susannah Kearsley work, Mariana, and loved it, so I wanted to see what else this author had on offer, but I was left feeling a little disappointed with this book. I found it very hard to get into, Sophia's early parts were dry, not at all interesting and very tedious; if I were reading the novel Carrie was writing, I wouldn't have got past the first few pages. I didn't really find the idea of genetic memories very plausible and the way Carrie discovered that detail after detail was exactly correct was sort of stretching it for me and got a bit boring after a while. The first few were an interesting quirk, but when she goes through, not just the same process, but the same thoughts and feelings about it, I found it too repetitive to be interesting.My other major qualm about this book and probably the main reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have is that it is very similar to Mariana, not just the plot and the situations the characters go through (they're both written about the same sort of back-in-time theme), but the fact that scenes seemed to have been borrowed from that book. For example, both have a scene where a supporting character tells the heroine why she might be experiencing these memories/flashbacks. In this it's Dr Weir, in Mariana it's Julia's brother. Both books had similar dialogue characteristics and the heroes names are very similar. It really did leave me feeling that these are just variations on the same book and wondering whether Susannah Kearsley is a bit of a one-trick pony.That said, once I got into the book, I found myself enjoying it more and becoming more and more interested in Sophia's story, but I couldn't help myself comparing this book with Mariana and, perhaps because I read the other first, I did find this book lacking. It's a sound read and I would recommend it for a light holiday read, perhaps, but it didn't have the same impact that Mariana did.

Susanna Kearsley has once again written a truly memorable book which has that frisson of the supernatural, without losing any of the believability of the story. The tale revolves around Carrie McLelland, an author who is writing a story about the period in Scottish history which details attempts to put King James back on the throne in the early 18th century. Carrie goes to Scotland to stay near the ruins of Slains castle, in the hope that the landscape will inspire her writing and provide local information to aid her research. It certainly does both of those things, and Carrie begins to write with an insight and fervour not entirely her own, but involving one of her ancestors, a young lady named Sophia Paterson, whose story and secrets must now be told.The result is the telling of both Sophia's experiences and also Carrie's in the present day. The switching from one time period to the other is seamless. Ms Kearsley really knows how to manage this method of storytelling to keep the reader's interest. Both stories have romance and intrigue, but it is the relating of Sophia's life that holds the most emotional suspense and surprises, whilst at the same time encompassing true historical facts.In short, this is a history lesson, a double romance, a puzzle and a ghost story, woven skilfully together. The writing is excellent. It is tender, warm and haunting, yet true to its historical background. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author. Something a little different like this deserves to be successful.

It would take a lot to get me to give up AS Byatt's "Possession" as my favourite book, but Susanna Kearsley has done it with her impeccably researched and superbly written novel, also known as "The Winter Sea" (which title I actually prefer). It's not often an author can combine a historical novel with a modern romance and rivet the reader to the pages like Kearsley can. I really connected to the characters and the places in this novel - have Googled the Jacobite uprising of 1708 and even looked at the satellite pictures of Slains Castle on Google Earth because I just wanted to know more about the story behind "Sophia's Secret". I just couldn't bear to let it go when it ended. The drama is suspenseful, the relationships believable and the romance between Sophia and John brought tears to my eyes. I generally adopt a "So Many Books, So Little Time" approach to reading and rarely read books twice, but will definitely make an exception for this one. All the rest of Susanna Kearsley's novels are now in my shopping basket! I just wish she had more.

I picked this book because it seemed to be a Barbara Erskine time slip story. Whilst it lacks the tension of a Barbara Erskine it was still good and well written. The historical bits are in the third person and the modern bits in the first person which gives it a certain immediacy. Carrie finds lots of locals more than willing to help her with historical detail when she starts writing a book about the failed 1708 Stuart uprising in Scotland. She quickly makes friends not least with the two sons of her landlord - Stuart and Graham. Her writing progresses much more speedily than normal and she seems to be almost in a trance when she's writing. But would anyone believe that she has got all the historical details right without doing the research? If you can't wait for the next Barbara Erskine then this is a good substitute.