Book Review: The Firebird

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nicola Martin is a London art dealer with a secret. When she touches an object, she sees glimpses of its past. Because of her family's history in oppressive Russia, she keeps her gift a secret. Then a woman comes to the gallery with a small wooden firebird, hoping it will bring her enough money to fulfill her dream of traveling around the world. When Nicola touches it, she gets a glimpse of a scene from the time of Peter the Great. However, her boss tells the woman her Firebird isn't valuable. But Nicola knows the woman is dying of a hereditary disease and decides to do her own investigation. But for that she needs the help of someone whose psychic talents are stronger than her own. She turns to Rob McMorran, a young Scottish policeman she once knew.

I've read several books by Susanna Kearsley and she is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. So far, her books have been set in Britain, so Firebird, with its Russian theme, seemed a departure. But as I began reading, familiar characters popped up. I was delighted to meet the grown-up Rob, whom I first met as a fey child in The Shadowy Horses and who is just as charming as an adult. And as he and Nicola continue to follow the trail of the Firebird, we learn the story of Anna, the child born to 18th c. characters from The Winter Sea.

Nicola and Rob follow Anna's wanderings from Scotland to Belgium as she is brought to safety with her Jacobite uncle. Later she becomes ward of Admiral Thomas Gordon and travels with him to St. Petersburg where he helps Peter the Great build his Navy.

Kearsley does a good job of interweaving the historical and contemporary stories. I found the glimpse into the Jacobite community in St. Petersburg a fascinating piece of unknown history.

If you enjoy the "story within a story" like Possession or The French Lieutenant's Woman, only with happier endings, give this one a try. 

View all my Goodreads reviews

Linda 

PS: Dear FCC, I pre-ordered a Kindle copy.

Book Review Club: A Visit to Scotland

Both of this month's books are set in Scotland, a country that has long fascinated me.


The Shadowy Horses 
by Susanna Kearsley
Audiobook narrated by Sally Armstrong
Oakhill Publishing 2011 (Originally published by Orion, 1997)


Setting: Eyemouth, Scotland
Inspired by Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Eagle of the Ninth, about the Roman Lost Legion.

Verity Gray is an English archeologist who is lured to a dig in Scotland by Adrian, an old boyfriend/colleague. There she learns that eccentric Irishman Peter Quinnell is financing the project. Rumored to be mad, Peter is obsessed with finding the Lost Legion, the Roman Ninth, which marched north into Scotland and disappeared early in the 2nd century AD. She's especially shocked to learn that Peter picked Rose Hills because a local boy reputed to have second sight had seen a Roman legionaire in the area. Can Robbie's Sentinel be real? Peter is hard to say no to, and Verity is intrigued by the job  as well as attracted to handsome Scotsman David Fortune. And then there is Robbie, a charming and precocious eight-year-old whose predictions are rarely wrong. I especially love the way the animals react to The Sentinel. The cats hiss and arch their backs while Robbie's collie gambols by the ghost's side, jumping up occasionally for a pat.

Last year I read Susanna Kearsley's The Rose Garden, and fell in love with her writing style. Her prose is lush and unhurried, as she draws you into the world of her characters. The Shadowy Horses is part archeological mystery, part ghost story combined with a lovely romance. It all makes for a very satisfying mix, on that fans of Mary Stewart will enjoy.

I'm so glad I chose the audio version. Armstrong is a marvelous narrator who does a wonderful job, especially with the Scottish accents, which sounded spot on to my American ear. I can still hear her musical cadences even though the audiobook is finished and returned to the library.

* The Shadowy Horses page at Kearsley's website includes  location photos and insight into what inspired her to write the story.

The Winter Sea
by Susanna Kearsley
Allison & Busby, 2010

Kearsley returns to Scotland for this story within a story set on the rugged coast north of Aberdeen. In the modern story, novelist Carrie McClelland arrives in Cruden Bay, a village near ruined Slains Castle, and knows this is where she has to live to write her book about the abortive 1708 Jacobite invasion.

Carrie's story is interspersed with scenes from her novel, featuring one of her ancestors, young Sophia Paterson, who comes to Slains in 1708 to live with a kinswoman. There she meets the love of her life, an outlawed Jacobite who serves James III and finds herself thrust into a world of intrigue and danger.

The whole thing becomes eerie when Carrie researches the events of 1708 and discovers that the scenes she has already written are oddly accurate, even down to names of characters she thought she'd made up, but who really existed. Her father suggests it might be a case of genetic memory. Carrie isn't sure; she just knows this is a story that must be told.

I enjoyed this book, too, though not quite as much as The Shadowy Horses. I liked the fact that it was set in 1708 rather than the more popular 1745 uprising, and the history of Slains Castle is quite interesting. You can check out Kearsley's location photos at her website.

What country fascinates you?

And as always, click on the graphic below for more fabulous book reviews!

Linda

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@Barrie Summy