 |
| Adored this novel! |
Mariana by Susanna Kearsley
Sourcebooks re-issue 2012
Source eBook plus own personal autographed copy
My previous Susanna Kearsley posts and reviews can be found here.
The first time Julia Beckett saw Greywethers she was only five, but she knew that it was her house. And now that she’s at last become its owner, she suspects that she was drawn there for a reason.
As if Greywethers were a portal between worlds, she finds herself transported into seventeenth-century England, becoming Mariana, a young woman struggling against danger and treachery, and battling a forbidden love.
Each time Julia travels back, she becomes more enthralled with the past...until she realizes Mariana’s life is threatening to eclipse her own, and she must find a way to lay the past to rest or lose the chance for happiness in her own time.
I am not really sure why it took me so long to get to this novel, especially given how I love this author and her work; this novel marks the seventh of the author's that I have read. I have had the eBook since 2012, and I recently went to an author event and purchased another copy there so I could have her autograph it. I finally read the eBook on my Kindle so I wouldn't spoil the newness of my new copy.
This book is another one of the time slip historical gothic novels that Kearsley is known for, and this one has romance, paranormal activity/fantasy, religion, time travel, suspense and historical details. When I say religion it just is a small conceptual fact to add to the history-- so atheists will still enjoy this. The time slip has Julia flashing back to the Charles Stuart era with folks wanting Richard Cromwell to rise up and defend his father's dream of the Commonwealth.
Do you have a soul mate? Do you believe in reincarnation?
I absolutely love loved loved it, and the ending really was so good that I was tearing up. If I had been alone at that exact moment I probably would have let the tears flow. I loved how Julia's character was portrayed as she was so realistically portrayed that she was easy to like and then of course the time-slip counterpart of her was also a character that was very easy to empathize with. There were probably so many tiny clues hidden that when I finished the novel and finally realized the "mystery" I felt compelled to start over. I will miss Julia and would love to see another book with this set of characters. I always enjoy the settings of Kearsley's novels of England and I could wax poetic but there's no need.
If you have not read Mariana yet, please go do so. Thank me later.
I love the resolution of 2016 -- reading what I want, when I want. It has meant that my reviews are all going to be for good books, because I am not going to waste time on books I don't like anymore!
.JPG)