Bellewether / Susanna Kearsley.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"I've loved every one of Susanna's books! She has bedrock research and a butterfly's delicate touch with characters--a sure recipe for historical fiction that sucks you in and won't let go!"--DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander

From New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Susanna Kearsley--A magical novel that blends history, forbidden romance and the paranormal

Secrets aren't such easy things to keep: It's late summer in 1759, war is raging, and families are torn apart by divided loyalties and deadly secrets. In this complex and dangerous time, a young French-Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest.

As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to Lydia, the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde discovers that Jean-Philippe is a true soldier and gentleman, until their lives become inextricably intertwined.

Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind reveal the true story.

Susanna Kearsley's books combine the magic of Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy, the remarkable women of Lucinda Riley's Seven Sisters Series, and the intrigue of books by Simone St. James.

Part history, part romance, and all kinds of magic, Susanna Kearsley's latest masterpiece will draw you in and never let you go, even long after you've turned the last page.

Also by Susanna Kearsley:

The Winter Sea

The Rose Garden

Mariana

The Shadowy Horses

The Firebird

The Splendour Falls

Season of Storms

A Desperate Fortune

Named of the Dragon

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Bellewether Threshold Some houses seem to want to hold their secrets. The Wilde House, standing silent in its clearing in the woodlands on the eastern shore of Messaquamik Bay, Long Island, holds more secrets than most houses. From the start, in 1682, when Jacob Wilde came across from England and first chose the rise of land above a small cove of the bay to build his house on, it was rumoured he was fleeing a dark scandal in his family. There were whispers he had killed his only brother in a rage, and so had fled to the Americas by way of doing penance. What the truth was, Jacob never said, and if the hands that laid the first square timbers of the Wilde House had indeed been stained by blood, the house stood stoic in that knowledge and concealed it. Like most houses of its time and place, it started as a basic square with two large rooms--a ground-floor hall or "keeping room" and one great chamber on the floor above--and a stone fireplace on the eastern wall. Beneath the rafters was a garret used for storage, and below the hall, reached by a trap door, was a cellar lined with dry-laid fieldstone. In defiance of the rumours, or perhaps to show his soul was blameless, Jacob painted his house white. A pure and blinding white. And yet the whispers held, and grew. They grew when Jacob's firstborn son, a boy he had named Samuel--for his brother, it was said--breathed only one brief hour and then no more, becoming the first Wilde to be buried in the private family graveyard at the forest's edge, above the cove. They grew still more when Jacob's barn was struck by lightning in a storm and burned until it scorched the ground. He built another in its place. And when the living children started coming--first two daughters, then a son he christened Reuben--Jacob took his tools in hand again and made his small house larger in the customary way, doubling its size with the addition of a second downstairs room and upstairs chamber on the east side of the great stone chimney stack, which now became the central warming heart of this expanded dwelling. The house, for those few years, appeared content. Until his younger daughter died of ague and his wife fell ill, and Jacob shuttered up the white house on the cove and moved his family west along the island to the settled farms at Newtown, where he deemed the air more healthful. Another son, named Zebulon, was born there. And in time, when Jacob died, the house at Newtown passing to the elder of his sons, it was this Zebulon who brought his wife, Patience, and their own two small boys back to Messaquamik Bay, and to the little wooded cove, and to the solid four-roomed house that had, for all those years between, stood silently amid the trees and waited. It was not an easy homecoming. His first two children grew and thrived but three more sons were born and lost and buried in the private family graveyard, and through these years of tribulation Zebulon, a carpenter by trade, enlarged the house yet further, stubbornly improving it by building a lean-to along the back wall, thus creating a kitchen and pantry and one more small chamber downstairs, with a steeply sloped garret above. At last another son was born, and lived. And then another. And a daughter, Lydia. It seemed for a time that the Wilde House, at last, would know happiness. But there were locals who still nodded sagely and said there'd been blood on the hands of the man who had built it, and blood would have blood, they warned. Blood would have blood. In truth there were few who were truly surprised by what happened next; for in the mid-eighteenth century, with one war winding its way to a close and another about to begin, it was not such an uncommon thing to find families dividing and splintering under the strain. And if one of the bodies that found its way into the Wilde family graveyard was that of an outsider . . . well, there was violence that happened, sometimes. It was then, in those years, that the light in the forest first started to shine. Sailors on the ships that came to anchor off the cove in Messaquamik Bay would often claim they saw the light within the trees, much like a lantern swinging from an unseen hand. The British officers who occupied the Wilde House in the Revolution swore they'd seen it also, and a young spy for the Patriots had written in his journal of the light that seemed to guide him safely round the posted sentries and which, having seen it first at dusk, he'd fancied had been carried by a soldier in French uniform. The British officers told other tales, of steps that trod the stairs by night, and doors that opened by themselves when no breeze blew to move them, but those tales were told with ale in hand, to test each other's courage, and when they were gone the old house closed again upon its secrets. As the years passed, its remote location and lack of amenities reduced it to a summer home for Zebulon's descendants, who by then had relocated to the city of New York. In due time, one of these descendants--Lawrence Wilde, a poet of some reputation--chose to take the money he had earned through publication and invest it in what he desired to be a grand retreat, away from civilized distractions, so in 1854 he had the Wilde House enlarged a final time with a new Victorian addition that amounted to a second complete house, overlapping the footprint of the original and indeed attached to the first by means of opening up a part of the lean-to wall. The house, in this condition, carried down the generations, and the light within the trees still beckoned to the ships offshore. Who held the light, and why, and what that spirit's purpose might be in the forest, no one knew, though locals often fell to speculating, nodding just as sagely as their forebears had when telling stories of the secrets held within the Wilde House. The house, when I first saw it, seemed intent on guarding what it knew within its walls as long as it stayed standing; but we all learned, by the end of it, that secrets aren't such easy things to keep. Excerpted from Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

RITA Award-winning author Kearsley (The Firebird) pens a captivating tale of a Long Island family caught up in the tumultuous events of the French and Indian War (1754-63) that culminated in the fall of French Canada to the British. The narrative is told from the point of view of three individuals: Lydia and Jean-Philippe, a captured French Canadian soldier billeted with Lydia's family, and present-day curator Charley, who is establishing Lydia's home as a museum. -Kearsley skillfully creates an atmosphere of parallel times between past and present by connecting a random object from the end of each of Charley's present-day chapters to a like object at the start of the succeeding chapter belonging to Lydia or Jean-Philippe. This magical feeling is enhanced by the ghostly presence that Charley encounters at the museum site and the legends she learns about the ill-fated lovers. VERDICT Rich characterizations and vivid historical flavor will keep readers enthralled in both past and present story lines. Highly recommended for K-earsley's many admirers and fans of romantic dual-time historical fiction.-Crystal Renfro, Kennesaw State Univ., Marietta, GA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

School Library Journal Review

In the aftermath of her brother's untimely death, 30-year-old Charley Van Hoek moves to Millbank, NY, a quaint seaside town on the North Shore of Long Island, to help care for her teenage niece. She takes over as curator of the Wilde House Museum, where the historical events she studies become entrenched in her present-day world. Hundreds of years earlier, Lydia Wilde lived with her father, her brothers, and two captured French soldiers, including a lieutenant, in the house. According to local stories, Lydia and the lieutenant began a relationship that ended tragically. When Charley uncovers artifacts, she realizes that some of the former inhabitants of the Wilde house may not be entirely gone. As she puts together the intricacies of the Wildes' lives, she makes sense of complex issues within her own family. Kearsley's comprehensive research is evident in the book's close attention to the details of the 18th century. Told from three viewpoints-Lydia; the French lieutenant, Jean-Phillipe; and Charley-the plot seamlessly weaves together the past and present. Though the topics are fascinating and the characters well developed, the action is slow to build, especially in the beginning. The author occasionally reverts to clichés and predictable formulas. VERDICT Recommend this romance for collections where historical fiction is in high demand.-Karin Greenberg, Manhasset High School, NY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* When Charley Van Hoek takes the job as the curator of the Wilde House museum on Long Island, she is unprepared for the ghost that haunts it. It is allegedly the spirit of a French Canadian lieutenant quartered with the Wilde family during the Seven Years' War (aka the French and Indian War) whose love for the Wilde daughter led to his tragic demise. Lydia Wilde also loved Jean-Philippe de Sabran, but, initially, she resented his presence, as it triggered her brother Joseph's PTSD. As in her previous novels, Kearsley (The Firebird, 2013) weaves a richly told contemporary story with an imaginative, authentically detailed tale from the past, throwing in just the right elements of romance and the paranormal. Such is Kearsley's storytelling skill that even the appearance of several deus ex machinas, who tie up all the missing pieces at the end, does not diminish the novel's impact. Readers of women's fiction, historical fiction, and romance will find much to love here, especially those fond of Kate Morton's old houses, and book groups will enjoy discussing a less explored piece of American history.--Maguire, Susan Copyright 2018 Booklist