What's In Your Library Bag Wednesday?...

     So, reading friends, what's in your library bag this fine Wednesday?? I'm going to talk a bit about a book in my bag that I showed you a book trailer on a while back. I try  not to talk about books twice, but this one warrants a little more. The book is The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. I've mentioned to you a time or two how much I enjoy historical fiction, Scotland, and time travel, right? Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series being one of my all time favorites...Well, Susanna Kearsley is a very similar author.
     The story of The Winter Sea incorporates Scotland in the 1700s and modern day with a" time travelesque" feel. The main charactes, Carrie McClelland, is a modern day author who is writing a novel set in the 1700s. She is living in France in the beginning where her novel is set. On a visit to Scotland and her agent/best friend's house, she passes the castle Slains. She is drawn to the castle in unexplainable ways. Her characters really "come alive" for her in her head and writing. So, Carrie rents a cottage by the sea and next to the castle, moving her setting, to write her novel.
     The novel kind of flips; one chapter will be modern day with the author, Carrie,  meeting people and doing research with the next chapter being the characters in her book following that story. It's not exactly time travel because the author never goes back in time, but the 1700s are as real to her as if she is there and she can feel what the characters feel. What Carrie figures out is that she actually has the genetic memory of one of her ancestors, the main character in her novel. Hence, the reason that she feels everything as if she were really there and why it feels like time travel. As the story moves along, Carrie's life starts to somewhat mirror her ancestor's life. She meets a man who has a very strong resemblance to the hero in her novel/ancestor's life. Is it just coincidence?? Those lines become very blurred and as a reader you wonder what was "real" and what wasn't.
     Obviously, if I read this novel and enjoyed it, there was a romance in both the modern day story and the 1700s story. It was so good, it made me laugh; it made me cry; and it made me smile...The surprise at the end made it all worth it. I give this book a three thumbs up; a definite good read!! Stop in and check it out!