Team member Leigh shares her love of Susanna Kearsley's work and how she decided to become a completist.
I no longer recall how I first came across The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley but I’ve never forgotten the way that book swept me away. It was a fully immersive reading experience, the kind where you look up once you’ve finished and know you’ve experienced something special.
I’ve gone on to read the rest of Kearsley’s catalogue, now totaling twelve books, but The Winter Sea will forever have a special place in my heart. One would think that I immediately went out and read the rest of her backlist but it’s rare for me to binge a whole series or catalogue. I generally prefer to space out my reads from an author and that was the case here.
In fact, a whole year passed before I picked up something else from her. I was doing some early Christmas shopping at Barnes and Noble in 2017. I may have been trying to find a book for my sister-in-law but obviously I browsed for myself as well. I noticed Kearsley’s name on a few book spines and was floored to realize The Firebird was a sequel to The Winter Sea. I immediately checked it out from the library and fell in love.
Over the course of the next few years, I made my way through Kearsley’s backlist. At the time, I knew of ten titles but it turned out her catalogue was a little more complicated. Her first two published titles, Undertow and The Gemini Game, are long out of print. They were Avalon Mystery category novels and had very small print runs for US libraries. I hope to come across a copy of each someday so I can be a true completist. However, Kearsley herself says, “while I’m fond of them as early works, they’re honestly not up to the standard of my later and longer novels.” So I will keep my expectations in check.
Then there’s Every Secret Thing, originally published under a pen name and missing from Kearsley’s website back when I first started my project. When it popped up on Libby a few years ago, I first wondered if there was an author with the same name or if it was one of those Amazon scams. But she really did write it and it’s now included on her website.
Kearsley’s novels tend to have two signatures: a dual timeline and an extrasensory or paranormal element, like time travel or psychometry. That doesn’t apply to her entire backlist but it is true of my favorites of her work. Her novels are well researched, making the historical settings come alive, and the mystery connecting the two timelines is always compelling to me, as are the characters. It’s rare that I prefer one timeline over another. I feel deeply invested in everyone’s plight, especially once the love story comes into play.
I still find her books to be unique. I’m constantly looking for authors who are readalikes with little success. The closest I’ve come to replicating my Kearsley reading experience is The Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick and The Dream Keeper’s Daughter by Emily Colin. If you have readalike recommendations, I’m all ears.
Publication Order:
- Undertow (1993) – out of print
- The Gemini Game (1994) – out of print
- Mariana (1994)
- The Splendour Falls (1995)
- The Shadowy Horses (1997)
- Named of the Dragon (1998)
- Season of Storms (2001)
- Every Secret Thing (2006)
- The Winter Sea (2008)
- The Rose Garden (2011)
- The Firebird (2013)
- A Desperate Fortune (2015)
- Bellewether (2018)
- The Vanished Days (2021)
- The King’s Messenger (2025)
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This 2008 novel made me fall hard for Kearsley’s writing. Author Carrie arrives in Cruden Bay, Scotland, ready to work on her next novel about the failed French invasion of 1708 which attempted to reclaim the exiled King James Stuart’s crown. She feels strangely drawn to Slains Castle and decides to name her heroine Sophia, in honor of one of her ancestors. Carrie soon begins having intense dreams about Sophia, a man named John, and the quest to restore the Stuart dynasty. Dreams which she pours into her novel. Or are they memories? Kearsley plays with genetic memory in this fascinating precursor to the Jacobite Uprising. The past and present love stories yanked my heart all over the place but ultimately left me satisfied. (Content warnings apply.) More info →
There’s so much to love about this 2015 novel: old diaries, codebreaking, fairy tales, perilous journeys, Jacobites, a hot Frenchman, past and present storylines. Amateur codebreaker Sara is hired to decode a three hundred-year-old journal belonging to Jacobite exile Mary Dundas. There’s never a dull moment in Mary’s storyline, which provides perspective about the toll the Jacobite cause took on families. Both Sara in the present and Mary in the past have wonderful love stories. I particularly appreciated the way Luc accepted and cared for Sara, who is autistic. More info →
Published in 1994, Kearsley’s full-length debut explores the idea of past lives. On a whim, Julia buys a house she fell in love with as a child and hasn’t seen since until she drives by it by chance. The house feels familiar in ways beyond her understanding. Then she begins to travel back in time to seventeenth-century England where she becomes Mariana, who is a young woman with danger all around her. I loved watching Julia find a home, community, and love in a small British town and figuring out who the present day characters were in their past lives. More info →
Emily heads to Chinon, France after her cousin Harry persuades her to join him on a trip, only to find him missing upon her arrival. As she looks for him around town, she gets to know the townspeople and hotel guests, as well as Chinon’s secrets. There’s a subtle paranormal element and includes two brief past storylines, one set during the Plantagenet reign in the 12th century and the other during WWII during the German occupation of Chinon. Written in 1995, there are a few aspects that did not age well. The most troubling was the prejudice and stereotypes around the way Romani secondary characters were written. There’s a romance between a French resistance worker and a Nazi soldier, which perpetuates the myth of the “good” Nazi. Plus, it was difficult for me to buy the townspeople romanticizing the relationship when less than fifty years had passed since the war. That aside, I still lost myself in this world, even if it was a lesser Kearsley novel. More info →
I never expected to get a thriller from Kearsley. This was originally published in 2007 under the pen name Emma Cole and then rereleased in Kearsley’s name in 2010. Kate is a Canadian journalist over in London to cover a serial killer trial when she becomes embroiled in a cover-up dating back to WWII. Soon she's on the run for her life as she figures out what happened in Lisbon during the war. I enjoyed learning about the espionage service in Lisbon and found the way it tackled ageism to be refreshing and unexpected. This had a dual timeline like most of Kearsley's novels but the pacing was all over the place and the POV transitions were quite clunky and could be jarring. Admittedly, I'm very picky when it comes to thrillers so this was only fine for me. More info →
Kearsley’s most recent novel takes us to 1613 England and Scotland. Andrew and Phoebe have never gotten along, all due to a misunderstanding. But when Andrew is sent on a secret mission by the king and requires a scribe, Phoebe joins the trip in order to take care of her father while he works with Andrew. I could not get enough of the way Andrew watched out for Phoebe, even when she was determined to believe the worst about him. Andrew’s Second Sight and dyslexia added to the plot in compelling ways, as did the flashbacks to the King's Court through the eyes of Andrew’s prisoner. This is as much about loyalty as it is about the importance of looking beyond surface appearances, especially when matters of palace intrigue are involved. More info →
Do you have a favorite Susanna Kearsley novel or do you have any readalike recommendations? Please share in the comments.
P.S. Where to start with Maggie O’Farrell and 20 historical mysteries featuring feisty female characters.
Leigh Kramer is the Editor, Event Project Manager, and Social Media Manager here at MMD. Her go-to genres are romance and fantasy. You can follow Leigh on Goodreads.
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