I've read several reviews of The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley, and I'm a little surprised how many people loved this book. Maybe these people are more cultured than I am and could appreciate the amount of research that went into the writing of this - both in the historical facts and the dialect in which some of the characters spoke. Or, maybe these people aren't the sort who need to be swept away in a novel, have a ridiculous passion for history, and never see plot twists coming. I am none of those things, so for me, the book was, in a word, boring. I'm sorry, but I just didn't care about this book at all. I didn't care about the modern day writer who is channeling the memories of her ancestor in creating her latest novel. I didn't think her 'love story' was anything special. And, I didn't buy into the whole concept of "genetic memory", that some of her ancestor's actual memories were preserved and passed down into her DNA. Give me a BREAK!
But, as underwhelming as that story was, it was far better than the parallel plot... that of her ancestor, Sophia. The bulk of her tale was bogged down in history, and not the interesting kind of history where stuff actually happened - no, no. These were stories of people TALKING about something that MIGHT happen! Come on - chapter after chapter of ship Captains and other political figures of the times sitting around discussing strategy of some king returning to reclaim his throne! There's all this talk of war, but nothing ever comes of any of it - at least, not at the level that was needed to justify all the hours I spent simply ENDURING this book.
Then there was Sophia's love story, and while I must admit I found it to be more exciting than Carrie's love story, I found the whole thing painfully predictable. I saw the big "twist" at the end coming 200 pages before it finally unfolded. The only thing shocking about the plot (either of them) was that Sophia would leave her child with another family because she didn't want the burden or hassles involved with being a single mother. That did not sit well with me at all.
Hoping the next book will be more captivating.
