THE VANISHED DAYS
From international bestselling author Susanna Kearsley comes a historical tale of intrigue and revolution in Scotland, where the exile of King James brought plots, machinations, suspicion and untold bravery to light. An investigation of a young widow’s secrets by a man who’s far from objective, leads to a multi-layered tale of adventure, endurance, romance…and the courage to hope.
In the autumn of 1707, old enemies from the Highlands to the Borders are finding common ground as they join to protest the new Union with England. At the same time, the French are preparing to launch an invasion to bring the young exiled Jacobite king back to Scotland to reclaim his throne,
From international bestselling author Susanna Kearsley comes a historical tale of intrigue and revolution in Scotland, where the exile of King James brought plots, machinations, suspicion and untold bravery to light. An investigation of a young widow’s secrets by a man who’s far from objective, leads to a multi-layered tale of adventure, endurance, romance…and the courage to hope.
In the autumn of 1707, old enemies from the Highlands to the Borders are finding common ground as they join to protest the new Union with England. At the same time, the French are preparing to launch an invasion to bring the young exiled Jacobite king back to Scotland to reclaim his throne, and in Edinburgh the streets are filled with discontent and danger.
Queen Anne’s commissioners, seeking to calm the situation, have begun paying out money sent up from London to settle the losses and wages owed to those Scots who took part in the disastrous Darien expedition eight years earlier—an ill-fated venture that left Scotland all but bankrupt.
When the young widow of a Darien sailor comes forward to collect her husband’s wages, her claim is challenged. One of the men assigned to investigate has only days to decide if she’s honest, or if his own feelings are blinding him to the truth.
The Vanished Days is a prequel and companion novel to The Winter Sea, with action that overlaps some of the action in that book. The Vanished Days goes back in time to the 1680s and introduces the reader to the Moray and Graeme families.
- Sourcebooks Landmark
- Hardcover
- October 2021
- 480 Pages
- 9781728249582
Buy the Book
$26.99
About Susanna Kearsley
SUSANNA KEARSLEY, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, is a former museum curator who loves restoring the lost voices of real people to the page, interweaving historical intrigue with modern adventure. Her books, published in translation in more than 20 countries, have won the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize, RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, a RITA Award, and National Readers’ Choice Awards, and have finaled for the UK’s Romantic Novel of the Year and the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. She lives near Toronto, Ontario.
Praise
“I’ve loved every one of Susanna’s books! Bedrock research and a butterfly’s delicate touch with characters—historical fiction that sucks you in and won’t let go!”—DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander
Discussion Questions
1. Did you see the twist coming? Do you think the author played fair with her readers? Were there any particular clues that you spotted?
2. In the book, Adam tells us “if you’ve read this closely you will find I’ve sought to tell the truth.” Did he? How do you feel about unreliable narrators? Do you have any favorite examples, in books or films?
3. In many dual-time stories, we have the benefit of a present-day narrator to interpret the past for us and explain what certain terms mean, but in this one, because both storylines are historical, we don’t have that luxury. Did you have any trouble following the history because of this?
4. Do you think historical fiction is a valid and useful way to learn about history? Did you learn anything from this novel that you didn’t know before about Scotland’s (or America’s) history?
5. Did it surprise you, on reading the author’s note about the characters, to learn how many of the characters were real people? Does it change the way you look at a story to know that the characters actually lived?
6. Families—both the ones we’re born into and the ones we create for ourselves—play a central part in this story. What different kinds of families did you find in this novel, and how do you feel they influenced the main characters?
7. The Browne family is not what you would call respectable, yet there are moments of great love and tenderness in their house. What is it that makes most of them, especially Barbara, sympathetic characters?
8. Henry says of his brother “Matthew was whatever ye had need of him to be, except dependable.” Is that a fair judgment? Is there a moment that shows us he has changed?
9. Why do you think Adam and Lily chose America as the place to start their new life together? What did it offer them that Scotland at that time did not?