Bellewether

Susanna Kearsley — 2018

From the bestselling author of A Desperate Fortune and The Firebird, comes an entrancing new novel of love, war, and historical intrigue. Some houses seem to want to hold their secrets. It’s 1759 and the world is at war, pulling the North American colonies of Britain and France into the conflict. The times are complicated, as are the loyalties of many New York merchants who have secretly been trading with the French for years, defying Britain’s colonial laws in a game growing ever more treacherous. When captured French officers are brought to Long Island to be billeted in private homes on their parole of honour, it upends the lives of the Wilde family—deeply involved in the treasonous trade and already divided by war. Lydia Wilde, struggling to keep the peace in her fracturing family following her mother’s death, has little time or kindness to spare for her unwanted guests. And Canadian lieutenant Jean-Philippe de Sabran has little desire to be there. But by the war’s end they’ll both learn love, honour, and duty can form tangled bonds that are not broken easily. Their doomed romance becomes a local legend, told and re-told through the years until the present day, when conflict of a different kind brings Charley Van Hoek to Long Island to be the new curator of the Wilde House Museum. Charley doesn’t believe in ghosts. But as she starts to delve into the history of Lydia and her French officer, it becomes clear that the Wilde House holds more than just secrets, and Charley discovers the legend might not have been telling the whole story...or the whole truth.

Reviews

Sarah Sammis@pussreboots

Apr 4, 2024

I rather liked the modern day ghost story / genealogical mystery. The extra two points of view for the historical romance are filler. http://pussreboots.com/blog/2019/comm...

Kelsey@silverkels

Mar 14, 2022

I absolutely adored this book. It’s a great example of the investigative work that historians put into telling our ancestors’ stories.

Southern Today Gone Tomorrow@southernwolf

Oct 5, 2021

Written by Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether follows Charley, a woman who's brother recently passed and has moved in with her niece, as she begins working with a general contractor Sam to restore a pre-Revolution war of a fictional war hero. This novel also follows Lydia Wilde, the sister of the war hero, and Jean-Philippe de Sabran, a French marine who, along with a second Frenchman, has been placed into her home as a prisoner of war and an officer during the Seven Years War. This novel shows us a section of American history, okay, a few, that we don't like to talk about, but that effected many things. Kearsley does a superb job with all of her novels in researching facts to weave into the tale. Prisoners of war, in the 1700s, were treated very differently then they were now. The officers were often treated with honor, or tried to, but she also shows us that not everyone kept to their statements. French soldiers were taken, and some were beaten despite the agreement that was made. This novel also deals with slavery, in a way that really sheds light on a variety of views that were held at the time. Both romances were slow, as most of Kearsley's are, but they were sweet and terribly easy to spot from the beginning. However, despite how much I loved this book, the beginning was slow. It was hard to get into. After about an hour or so of reading I finally had real interest in reading it (besides the fact that the due date to get it back to the library was coming up). The most compelling characters were the historical. The modern day set up had Rachel, the niece, but we really didn't get to know her much at all. The only characters in the modern world I found myself caring about were Sam, the contractor, and the mysterious happenings in the Wilde house. Overall this was still a wonderful book and I would highly recommend it to anyone with the temper of: it is a slow book. There isn't a lot of action and fast movement. Which does rather match how real life often flows. It is but a few moments that really push everything forward.