Sourcebooks Casablanca
April 2015
On Sale: April 7, 2015
528 pages ISBN: 1492602027 EAN: 9781492602026 Kindle: B00MX6297Q Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
Beloved New York Times bestselling author Susanna Kearsley
delivers a riveting novel that deftly intertwines the
tales of two women, divided by centuries and forever
changed by a clash of love and fate.
For nearly three hundred years, the cryptic journal of
Mary Dundas has kept its secrets. Now, amateur codebreaker
Sara Thomas travels to Paris to crack the cipher.
Jacobite exile Mary Dundas is filled with longing-for
freedom, for adventure, for the family she lost. When fate
opens the door, Mary dares to set her foot on a path far
more surprising and dangerous than she ever could have
dreamed.
As Mary's gripping tale of rebellion and betrayal is
revealed to her, Sara faces events in her own life that
require letting go of everything she thought she knew-
about herself, about loyalty, and especially about love.
Though divided by centuries, these two women are united in
a quest to discover the limits of trust and the unlikely
coincidences of fate.
I must have requested this book last spring on NetGalley, and forgot all about it after I didn't get an ARC. I checked it out from my library when it was released, and loved it so much it was my choice for my book club for the fall. Then, inexplicably, I got an email from NetGalley in November saying that I got a copy of the book. Ooookay... Way to be prompt, publisher! So this is going to be an abbreviated review, because why would you grant a long-ago request, months and months after the release, out of nowhere? Odd!
Susannah Kearsley's books are always a treat, and A Desperate Fortune is no exception. This is, unusually for Kearsley, not a time-slip novel, which confused me until I settled into the story and realized what is is, and isn't. It does have a dual timeline, however, with a modern heroine and a Jacobite heroine. There is a diary written by the Jacobite exile heroine that links the two stories. The current day woman is an amateur cryptographer who decodes and translates the diary. There are two delicious romances, present day and past, and the lovely lyricism in Kearsley's writing that I always adore. I love the subtle and slow build of romance in Kearsley's books, which are almost more powerful for being so understated in the sea of explicit erotic romances flooding the market today.
A Desperate Fortune is a wonderful blend of history and romance that leaves me deeply satisfied, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. (Make Kay 7:50pm December 7, 2015)
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