The Vanished Days

By: Susanna Kearsley

Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie

Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

I have been persuaded now to take my pen in hand and tell the story as it should be told....

In the autumn of 1707, old enemies from the Scottish Highlands to the Borderlands are finding common ground as they join to protest the new Union with England. An invasion is imminent as many plot to bring the exiled young Jacobite king back to Scotland to reclaim his throne, and in Edinburgh, the streets are filled with discontent and danger.

Queen Anne, seeking to calm the situation, has sent money up from London for Scots who took part eight years earlier in the ill-fated Darien expedition that left Scotland all but bankrupt.

A young widow comes forward to collect her husband’s portion of this money, but her claim is dubious. The man assigned to investigate now has to determine if she’s telling the truth, or if his own troublesome feelings are blinding and misleading him. It’s not only a matter of justice, but of lost love and a nation betrayed.

©2021 Susanna Kearsley (P)2021 Recorded Books

Had me guessing

to the very end! Excellent book, excellent performance, and wonderful twists and turns. I have now finished all of Susanna Leads let's books. Highly recommended!

Great read!

I loved this book! It was so good I couldn’t stop listening. The end was such a twist I literally replayed it a second time. One of my favorites from this author!

Stick with it!

I love Susanna Kearsley books but one of my favorite parts is the strong female protagonists who usually have a modern mindset. I struggled with this book for a while because the main character and narrator are male, and there is no modern component. Nevertheless, stick with it, the story comes together in pieces, and a revelation at the end had me re-listening to the whole book immediately to pick up on details I had missed. The characters are well developed and realistically flawed/complex. So while this story seemed to have a much different style and tone than other Kearsley books, I still very much enjoyed it.

The Vanished Days

I loved this book! All 4 of these books go so well together. I enjoyed them all!

Superb Narration and story

I have loved all of Susanna Kearsley's books and planning on reading them all again. This one took me awhile to get involved. The story was well written and narrated but the names of the characters were similar and it took me awhile to really know who was who. The narrator was excellent and did well with female and children voices. Susanna has a way of making you FEEL you are in the era with the wonderful descriptions of everything - right down to the coal falling from the fire. You can feel the warmth in the room or the cold of the wind blowing in your face. Her writing is so tidy. By the end you have learned everything you needed to know - no loose ends at all (which sometimes drives me nuts). And now I miss those people whom I've recently become acquainted. I'm already looking forward to her next book!!!!

Fantastic Read!

Mystery and intrigue. Love and betrayal. It’s all here and expertly done by an amazing author. I’m spell bound again by Susanna’s story telling. And my hat is off to the perfect narrator for this tale! I didn’t see it all come together until the end but Mr. Mackenzie is of course perfection in the leading role!

Narration was not great.

I love Susanna Kearsley’s writing. The narration was ok. The continued mispronunciation of Don Quixote was maddening and disappointing since it is such a famous novel.

A soothing voice

I love the story and have read it often, but listening to Mr MacKenzie reading it was marvelous. I will have to listen to it often .

Good, but not as good as her other books

I love Johanna Kearsley, but I had trouble getting into this book. It ended up being a good story, but not as entrancing as I found her other books. The other ones I just couldn’t put down and this one I easily could.

I think it should have a trigger warning for one part of the story, when she’s a little girl. I also think the narrator did a mostly good job, but he pronounced Don Quixote (Don key-ho-tay) as ‘Don quick-sot’ at least a dozen times (up to 20), which got on my nerves. It’s a classic novel and he butchered it over and over again, which was hard to take.

No dual timeline but still immensely satisfying...

A lot of characters to keep track of but she makes you care.

Sorta ambivalent about Robert Ian Mackenzie's narration.