A Desperate Fortune

Front Cover
Sourcebooks Landmark, 2015 - Fiction - 528 pages

A New York Times Bestseller!

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

Beloved New York Times bestselling author Susanna Kearsley delivers a riveting novel that deftly intertwines the tales of two women, divided by centuries and forever changed by a clash of love and fate.

For nearly three hundred years, the cryptic journal of Mary Dundas has kept its secrets. Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas travels to Paris to crack the cipher.

Jacobite exile Mary Dundas is filled with longing--for freedom, for adventure, for the family she lost. When fate opens the door, Mary dares to set her foot on a path far more surprising and dangerous than she ever could have dreamed.

As Mary's gripping tale of rebellion and betrayal is revealed to her, Sara faces events in her own life that require letting go of everything she thought she knew--about herself, about loyalty, and especially about love. Though divided by centuries, these two women are united in a quest to discover the limits of trust and the unlikely coincidences of fate.

Other bestselling books by Susanna Kearsley:

The Winter Sea

The Rose Garden

The Firebird

Other editions - View all

About the author (2015)

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Susanna Kearsley's writing has been compared to Mary Stewart, Daphne Du Maurier, and Diana Gabaldon. She recently hit the bestseller lists in the U.S. with The Winter Sea, which was also a finalist for the UK's Romantic Novel of the Year Award and winner of a RT Reviewers Choice Award for Best Historical fiction, and RITA-nominated The Rose Garden, winner of a RT Reviewers Choice Award for Best Historical Fantasy/Paranormal. Her award-winning books have been translated into several languages, selected for the Mystery Guild, condensed for Reader's Digest, and optioned for film. She lives in Canada, near the shores of Lake Ontario.

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