The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (audio)

★★★★★

"...the fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes...and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring."

Goodreads Summary: 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..  

The above photograph is a picture of Slains.  I found it through Google images when searching for the book's cover and it describes the book perfectly.  I can't say enough good things about this book...I absolutely loved it and the narration on the audio book was amazing.

I've read a lot of past/present historical fiction novels, and this is by far one of my favorites.  I loved the description and instantly was intrigued by the characters.  I usually have a tendency to like the parts in the past better, but this one was a dead tie.  This novel was extremely well-written and unique.  I knew it was going to be a 5-star from the very beginning and I loved the idea of using the writing of a historical-fiction novel as the contemporary story!  The research process was really interesting and I loved being able to learn more about it as the author did.

All-in-all and excellent book and a great new author to read!  I came across this when a patron returned it at the library and am so glad I picked it up.  I loved listening to the narration, but there was a lot to take in and I often found myself having to look back at the book and look up the historical characters and dates to make sure I was getting everything.  I am very much looking forward to reading the second Slains novel, The Firebird, but I may read the novel this time around!

This book was #1 on my top ten list of 2014.