Stevie‘s review of A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley
Contemporary Romance and Historical Mystery published by Sourcebooks Landmark 07 Apr 15

I love timeslip novels – where two or more interlocking stories are told across different periods of history – but they can be fiendishly difficult to categorise. This book, for example, contains two romances set three centuries apart as well as a mystery that both heroines have to solve and a series of other, often dangerous, adventures for the historical heroine to face as she journeys across Europe and attempts to make sense of everything in her diary while keeping that diary safe and secret from supposed friends and potential enemies alike.

Not that our contemporary heroine has everything her own way either. Sara was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in early adulthood, and while she is glad to have had an explanation for why she’s always felt different from, and at times had difficulty in understanding, other people, she still struggles at times with everyday interactions and worries that she will never find a job that really suits her or a partner that will stick around for more than a month before deciding that they can’t cope with the differences. When her cousin asks her to decipher a section of an encrypted diary, Sara is able to grasp the message in the strings of numbers faster than most people and so is sent to France to unlock the secrets of the diary that her cousin hopes will form the basis of a famous author’s latest bestseller.

In France, Sara meets up with Luc – the ex-husband of her host’s housekeeper – and his young son Noah. The pair of them help with her work – and also seem to understand Sara better than she at first realises. Meanwhile, Sara finds herself drawn ever deeper into the stories she is deciphering as Mary Dundas’ adventures unfold.

Mary is the daughter of one of the men who fled to France with James II following his replacement by William and Mary. After her mother’s death she was sent to stay with French relations and so is very pleased when her brother visits and offers to take her back to Paris with him. However, it soon turns out that he needs her for quite another purpose, and Mary is dispatched to accompany a fugitive from England and his companions as they make their way across France and Italy to meet with James II’s son and his followers in Rome.

In spite of at first distrusting of all her companions, Mary slowly uncovers their secrets and starts to fall for Hugh MacPherson, the dour Scottish warrior who acts as protector to Mary; he is also protecting the fugitive she is acting as decoy for and an older woman who travels with them (for reasons that are not at first clear to Mary) in spite of suffering severe travel-sickness at every stage of the journey.

I particularly love Sara’s side of the story. Luc is able to anticipate many of her needs in spite of not revealing how he came to be so understanding until late on in the book (and the events leading up to that reveal are just beautiful). I find the depictions of Sara’s difficulties to be totally believable, as is her inability to see how Luc feels about her. Mary’s story frustrates me at times, but the pay-off when the various parts of her mystery fell into place make everything feel worthwhile. I need to read more of this author, both her contemporary stories and her historicals.

Highly recommended indeed.

Grade: A

Summary:

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.

Read an excerpt.