The Firebird.  Finished 4-26-14, rating 4.25/5, historical fiction, 544 pages, pub. 2013

Nicola Marter was born with a gift. When she touches an object, she sometimes glimpses those who have owned it before. When a woman arrives with a small wooden carving at the gallery Nicola works at, she can see the object’s history and knows that it was named after the Firebird—the mythical creature from an old Russian fable.

Compelled to know more, Nicola follows a young girl named Anna into the past who leads her on a quest through the glittering backdrops of the Jacobites and Russian courts, unearthing a tale of love, courage, and redemption.

from Goodreads

I finished this almost a month ago so I’ll keep this short.  I loved The Winter Sea, it was my favorite read from last year, and this is a continuation of that story.  I didn’t love it as much as it’s predecessor for one big reason.  It also tells two stories, a modern one that links to a historical one, but in this book the modern story is not at all engaging.  It involves two people who can read minds and travel in time by using their paranormal abilities.  It was just to hard for me to care about Nicola and to a lesser extent, Rob.  They could do too much.  It was too easy.  This was pretty much the first third of the book so I made a slow go of it.  Once we got to Anna’s story in Imperial Russia, I loved it!  Anna is the true star and I loved every minute of her adventures.

This is my second book by Kearsley and I’m still a fan, but do feel like this could have been better.  Since I didn’t exactly fall in love with Rob in this one I’m not in a huge hurry to read The Shadowy Horses, the story told when he was a boy.  Has anyone read it?

I read this one on my Nook.