Review 312: The Vanished Days

The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While this is a prequel to two other books by Susanna Kearsley, I haven’t read those and didn’t seem necessary. Now that I have read this one, I’m ready to get into the first book: The Winter Sea.

This was a detective type story taking place in Scotland in 1707 with the main character Adam tasked with attempting to certify the legitimacy of a claimed marriage by Lily. She is seeking her husband’s pension since he died, which necessitates authorizing the claim. Since they married in secret, and the signed witnesses are already dead, it’s a tricky claim. Adam is the narrator of the story and he when interviewing the subjects, instead of a question-and-answer narrative it turns into a story of the past. This made the novel flow well. What unfolds is the story of Lily’s life, since a young girl and up to the recent days.

Since I haven’t read the other books in this series, I cannot comment on whether it helps to develop the characters more or what adds to the overall series. I was fully immersed in the story and enjoyed the journey.

I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator had a very careful way of speaking that included longer pauses than I’m used to hearing. It took a short a bit for me to adjust to the narration, but once it got underway the story took over and I stopped noticing the narrator.