The Firebird

I have read quite a few books by this author and have enjoyed all of them. This one may be one of my favorites. The author always uses some sort of ESP (Extrasensory perception or sixth sense) to go back in time and in this story it is mainly through Psychometry, (to see something from having touching an object) and it also involves some other forms of ESP. The story althought encompasses other characters from previous books she has written : Anna, from Winter Sea and Rob, from Shadowy Horses. You do not have to have read those books to read and enjoy this story, although they are very worth reading and I think you will wish you had. This Story goes between present day England, Scotland, Belgium and then Russia and also those same places back in the 1700's. A lot of research of Scottish and Russian history went into the making of this story and many of the characters are true to history, throwing in fictitious ones to create a fabulous story. Nicola Marter, a young woman who works for a Russian art gallery in London, who while there one day, meets an older woman who brings in a small bird sculpture called a firebird, supposedly given to her ancestors by the Empress Catherine of Russia, but she had no paper work to prove it. When Nicola touches the bird, she sees a fleeting image of (a young girl, Anna and the Empress in a conversation). and since she is going to Russia for an art show, decides to see what she can discover about the bird and the two women she saw in her image. Knowing that her abilities are not as strong as she would like, she goes to see her old love interest , Rob McMorran (from Shadowy Horses) who lives in Scotland and who has a very well developed sense of ESP. This is a great story of their reunion and being able to use their abilities together to delve into the past and bring this story to life. Well written, with a lot of great descriptions of the scenes, people and places they see and go to. The author says this about her type of stories: "I write modern gothic novels that blend historical adventure and modern-day suspense with romance and a touch of something spooky, so they don't fit neatly into any category, really...but they're fun to write!" Normally the word Gothic novel would have kept me from reading her books, but the ESP part attracted me and I am so glad I discovered her work and look forward to her next one.

I loved alot about this book but couldn't help but wish there was more Rob and Nicola and less Anna. I don't think either storyline delivers completely. I thought the begining amazing, the set up for the firebird really good. The connection between the main characters terrific. Young Anna I loved. I loved seeing the characters from the Winter Sea. But the way Rob & Nicola 'saw' the history of Anna to me was a little too pat, a little too obvious a literary device and not i guess believable enough, you forgive it because its described beautifully and it gets the story from A to B but for my two cents I thought it needed more. I also thought the whole specific of the firebird became mostly irrelevant to the story, not the legend or the way it explained rob and nicola's journey but the as the story motivator the thing itself was practically forgotten. I also didn't think Anna's story was interesting enough on its own. Strip it of the characters from the Winter Sea and although beautifully told and a bit interesting for the historical setting its good but not great. The ending left me wanting a little bit more. It was the same with the Rose Garden (which I also loved), I don't know if I just don't want them to end or if those last moments feel a bit rushed. You won't regret reading this book it has so many amazing things about it, I just wanted it to be even more amazing.

The Winter Sea was the first book I read by Susanna Kearsley, and my first romance. It's still one of my favorite books of all time. I've since read every other book she's written that's available in e-book form, the last being The Firebird, another great read. I loved the character Anna, who at the beginning of the story finds out the family she lives with is not actually her own, and soon finds she's in terrible danger. Her story, which takes place during the Jacobite Rebellion in the early 1700s, is told through the visions of two modern day people who, by holding an object (in this case beginning with the Firebird, a centuries-old wooden sculpture) can see the events in the past that were connected to that object. The modern characters have a romantic history together, and as they try to solve the mystery of the origin of the Firebird, their attraction to each other grows. All Susanna Kearsley books have well-developed, strong characters, beautifully described scenery (in this book it's in Scotland and Russia mainly), and well-researched historical detail. In The Firebird, many of the supporting characters were real people who lived during the Jacobite Rebellion. The dialogue is witty, and the romance is touching and beautiful and not the least bit trashy. In order to not spoil the suspense of The Winter Sea, I would suggest reading The Winter Sea first since The Firebird continues the story of some characters from that novel; although, The Firebird can stand on its own. I bought the Audible version at a discount after buying the Kindle version, and I would highly recommend it. The narrator does a wonderful job of switching between English, Scottish, and Russian accents as well as male, female, young and old. I highly recommend The Firebird and all other Susanna Kearsley novels.

I've purchased this book because I have enjoyed Susanna Kearsley previous books. Still being my favorites Mariana and The Winter Sea , to my surprise this is a new book that also follow up with the beloved characters of The Winter Sea!! One of the main characters is also a dear one (all grown up now) from The Shadowy Horses . Nicola works for a respectable art dealer in London who specializes in Russian art. She also posses the gift (a curse in her opinion) of psychometry. Thanks to her abilities she decides to help a woman who is in great need to sell an old wooden crave figure of a Firebird. She told Nicola that the Firebird has been in her family for generations and was given to her ancestor by Catherine I of Russia. Since its impossible to prove the real value of the crave figure, Nicola starts a quest to find the true story of the Firebird with the hope to prove the value of the piece. She doubts her abilities and is afraid to use them, therefore she decided to ask for the help of Rob (an ex boyfriend), who is highly gifted in the paranormal. During their quest we met Anna, a lovely girl from the past that grown up as a very likeable and strong woman. She is one of the leading characters of the book and is the daughter of Sophia and John Moray. By a leap of faith she became the ward of Vice Admiral Gordon who was commissioned in Russia by Peter the Great. It continues the story of the Jacobites who fled to Russia and lived and served their King from the Russian Courts. New characters, new romance, new intrigues and more history, of course. Nicola exhausted my patience for moments during length of the story; until she is finally able to embrace who she is. Rob is adorable, but we already knew his character from The Shadowy Horses. A book that will be greatly enjoyed for those already familiar with the author and her work and new ones alike. Beware that you wont be able to put the book down until the very end... **SPOILER ALERT*** You'll find out what happened to Sophia and John Moray!! But is not my tale to tell, you must read the book!

Are you looking for a book to sweep you away? This is a very engaging story with a contemporary romance, loads of history (including a mystery and another love story) and paranormal elements of clairvoyance that can cross time periods. The first book of this loosely tied series was set in Scotland at Slains Castle in contemporary time and at the time of the Jacobites. Our mystery begins when a Scottish woman brings a carving of what she says is a firebird for appraisal to Claire’s firm. Her family legend is that it was given to an ancestor named Anna by the Tsarina Catherine. The historic portion of this book follows closely in time as it tracks the life of Anna, the daughter of the historic couple in book one. It is still dangerous to be a Jacobite. This story does not stay in Scotland though. It follows Anna as a child in hiding and in exile across Europe to Russia with different protectors. The history of the period is so closely woven into the story that its presence enriches the story instead of bogging it down with unnecessary details. The writing is very skillful as the author moves gracefully between the two time periods and the different sets of characters. The romance is romantic, but chaste. There are emotional moments that are moving. This book is the second in a series and it makes sense to read them in order even though the story would in its main part stand alone. Reading the first book would give you the foundation of the history of the Jacobites, and the story of Anna’s parents and why they gave her up to a foster family. If you have read the first book, the finale of the second is more emotionally powerful. Bottom line: loved it.

I have enjoyed every novel of Susanna Kearsley's that I've read. She has a talent for writing romantic suspense set in two different timelines. In The Firebird, we have Nicola and Rob traveling first to Belgium and then to Russia in the present day in an attempt to authenticate Margaret Ross's heirloom. The second timeline involves the little girl that the wooden bird was given to-- a time shortly after the death of Peter the Great, a time when a Stuart was trying to retake the throne of England, a time when the English were doing everything in their power to prevent that from happening. The present day timeline is a good one. Nicola and Rob are two strong, fascinating characters whom you want to see getting together. Nicola has always been afraid of her gift and hasn't really explored how far she can go with it. Rob on the other hand is the "old hand" (and the old soul) whose patience and steadiness are exactly what Nicola needs. But as strong as their story is, it's not the heart of this book. No, the heart of the book belongs to young Anna Logan, who spent the first years of her life unaware that she was living with a foster family. When the political situation takes a deadly turn, Anna is told a portion of the truth of her heritage, and she's spirited away to a convent in Belgium before finding herself in St. Petersburg. This girl will steal your heart. She's smart, she's observant, and she's incredibly brave. She may be old beyond her years, but she's still a little girl whose naivete has dire consequences. After all she's been through, you just want things to go right for Anna. Kearsley put me right smack in the middle of that Belgian convent and before I knew it, I found myself in Russia. Anna Logan's story is compelling, and Kearsley does an excellent job of showing what happened to so many of the Jacobites who fought on the losing side. If I have any quibble about The Firebird it's that this historical storyline is so strong that the one in the present day pales by comparison. I really liked the characters of Nicola and Rob, so I do wish their story had been beefed up a bit. But that is a very small quibble indeed because each time I picked up this book, I lost myself in Kearsley's marvelous story.

Nicola has a chance meeting with a woman with a three hundred year old heirloom and is transported into a journey she hadn't expected to take. In order to find the true origins of the firebird, she reunites with a past flame who shares a hidden talent at examining the past. Together they follow in the footsteps of Anna, a jacobite from the early 1700s, and discover more than where the heirloom came from. I hadn't read anything other than the short summary of the ploitlines regarding this book so I was very happy to discover that it was a sequel to the The Winter Sea (Sophia's Secret) and of a sort to The Shadowy Horses. It could easily be read on its own however without having read the others although the previous background knowledge surrounding Annas heritage is nice to know. At first I didn't think that I would end up enjoying it as much as I did because for me the Shadowy Horses wasn't my favourite Susanna Kearsley novel. But I truly loved this storyline and the two romances that developed within it. The historical fiction is always very compelling but the combination of the love story just gets me every time. I was sad when this book was over and feel I might have to go back and read it a bit slower next time rather than read it as fast as I could because I needed to know what happened next (yes, I was truly lost to this one and that is why I give it 5 stars).

A tremendous amount of historical research went into this book, partly set in the early 18th century and partly in the present. Unfortunately, the whole adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Nicola works in an art gallery and is blessed with an unusual gift. She only has to touch an object to be transported back in time to another time and place where she can see its creator or some other scene associated with it. Rob, a policeman in Scotland whom Nicola met during a series of experiments into ESP at Edinburgh University, has an even more developed gift. He can see and talk to Roman legionnaires who roam the site of a former battlefield and he can teleport himself virtually at will anywhere in the past where he can watch history unfold as an observer. Rob is comfortable with his gift but Nicola is uneasy and troubled by hers. When they first met, they were attracted to one another but Nicola fled in fear to London. Now, they embark on a quest together. Nicola becomes interested in an object a woman brings to her gallery, a model of a bird. Did it really belong to the Tsarina Catherine, the wife of Peter the Great? And as luck would have it, she has an assignment to St Petersburg - and she decides to bring Rob along. They are soon swooping back to the 1720s together and become immersed in the story of Anna Jameison, the abandoned daughter of a Scottish supporter of the Pretender James VIII of Scotland who has been driven into exile by the Hanover kings of England but is constantly plotting his return. She apparently once owned the mysterious object. Anna, through a series of unlikely plot developments, ends up also in St Petersburg, adopted by a Jacobite soldier in the service of Peter the Great. There she eventually meets the handsome Irishman Edmund O'Donnell. But who is he working for? So we have parallel love stories -- Nicola and Rob in our century and Anna and Edmund three centuries earlier. The problem with this is that this author has no talent in describing love and passion. Her characters simply can't express it convincingly - and unfortunately toward the end of the book she falls back on the standard cliches of the romance novel to describe what happens. The bigger absurdity, which the reader must accept in order to fully enjoy this book, is Nicola and Rob's extraordinary ability to follow Anna's life as if they were watching a movie. If a person really had this gift, just imagine what could they do with it? What fascinating historical mysteries could be solved? Which amazing insights into the past could be garnered? Instead, this pair spent their time following the lives of two anonymous and not particularly interesting characters in order to solve a trivial mystery relating to the model of a bird. Reading the afterward, one is impressed with the depth of research the author has conducted. Many of the characters are based on real people. I didn't know that so many Scots wound up in Russia where they formed an expatriate community in the service of the Tsar. But the politics being described are very complicated and hard to follow. Also, I just can't work up too much enthusiasm for the cult of the Pretenders.That's just me, perhaps, because obviously for some folk, it's still a burning issue. But it doesn't seem to me that history was particularly ill-served by the end of the Stuart dynasty. I know all kinds of romance surrounds the Jacobite revolts, together with nostalgia about the loss of Scottish independence -- but the cause doesn't move me. The one really important historical figure who figures in this book very briefly is Peter the Great. But after one very brief appearance, he disappears so we don't learn much about him. That's fairly typical I think. The author isn't interested in the major themes and events of history and keeps her focus squarely on the smaller stuff. It's not a bad book, not at all poorly written or silly. But neither is it great. The author, like her characters, seems determined not to fully realize the potential of the idea her imagination has brought to life.

A bit of mystery, a bit of history and a bit of psychic. I really enjoy mystery books that go back in time. This one is set in today but has episodes in historical Russia and Scotland. I found it a lovely read. I would definitely read more by this author.

First of a continuation. She's😀 a great author and combined some history with fiction. I loved this book.

I am glad I followed some others’ recommendations regarding the order of stories where characters already known, get somehow together in this tremendously entertaining story. Loved it!

I was quite astonished when I learned that Rob McMorran (the shadowy horses) was one of the leading characters. The shadowy horses is by all means my fav book and altough I was hoping to find a hint how Davy and Verity are doing in the future I loved to see how the little boy with the sixth sense had turned out. And after settling in with the first pages I could not stop reading. When you also read Sophia's secret you will be even more captivated... The characters are well drawn and easily loved by the reader. Romance is an impotant part of the book but never too gooey. the historical part is more than well carved out, giving a lot of background knowledge. Places of the plot are always described thouroughly so sometimes you feel like being inside the book yourself, witnessing the story. I even had tears in my eyes at some point... if you aim to read the book, you mighf think about starting with the shadowy horses and sophia's secret, as you will see the book through different eyes...

I have never read one of Kearsley's books before and I am so glad that I chose to read The Firebird. The story flits between present day with Nicola Marter and Rob, two psychics with an interlinked history, who chase down a wooden carving called the Firebird on a journey that takes them into the past circa the time of the Jacobites and across countries to unravel the tale. In previous reviews I have seen people state that there was too much detail, that they flicked through to reach the present day story and that they couldn't continue to read this book. Well, in my opinion, those people are missing out! All of the detail was necessary to build up a rich and vivid picture of landscapes, both past and present, and the author brilliantly intertwined the two stories along the way. I do agree (ever so slightly!) that towards the end of the book the story of the present day felt a bit left behind and wasn't visited so frequently until, all of a sudden, we were back in present day and the events that had built up nicely along the way reached a sudden climax. Although this was not a bad thing, I personally would have liked to have been eased back into the present day story after being in the past for a fair few pages, just to re-jog my memory and strengthen the attachments I had made with the present day characters. However, I was so enjoying the characters in the past that I didn't feel sad we had stayed with them for so long, either! I think a great novel grips you and you form bonds with the characters and for an author to illicit this feeling in both the past and present sections of the book I believe it shows a great talent. The story was wrapped up nicely and there were no loose ends- it was a very satisfying finish to the novel! In reading the author's note at the end of the book I must also comment on how well researched and detailed this story is and I couldn't believe so much was based on true historical facts and people. A lot of time, effort, research and love went into the making of this book and I will 100% read more from this author- I look forward to doing so immensely!