Face Down Across the Western Sea - Hardcover

Emerson, Kathy Lynn

3.75

158 ratings by Goodreads

9780312288235: Face Down Across the Western Sea

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312288239 ISBN 13: 9780312288235

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2002

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Anxious to prove England's claim on the New World, Queen Elizabeth has charged Sir Walter Pendennis, seasoned spy and diplomat, with the top-secret mission. Walter gathers a team of scholars at his Cornwall estate, and calls upon his dear friend Susanna, Lady Appleton, to assist. Susanna is an expert herbalist with a quick mind and wise ways-and Walter has long carried a flame for her.

When Walter's wife appears uninvited at Priory House, she sets about extinguishing that flame. Meanwhile, Susanna and Walter find that troubling discrepancies have surfaced among sailors' accounts of the land beyond the Western Sea. Their research becomes intrigue when an eyewitness account turns up missing and a scholar is found dead in his study. Is the murder the work of an academic rival? A jealous lover? A Spanish spy?

Scholarly trickery and New World scandal come to light as Susanna's sleuthing skills are put to the test.

Face Down Across the Western Sea is a potent concoction, brimming with the qualities that have made the Susanna, Lady Appleton, series a favorite among mystery lovers: rich period detail, first-rate suspense, and at the center of it all, Susanna-a headstrong and beguiling heroine.

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About the Author:

Kathy Lynn Emerson lives in Wilton, Maine. Face Down Across the Western Sea is the seventh book in her Susanna, Lady Appleton, series.

From Booklist:

The widow Susanna, Lady Appleton, is at Priory House, an old Cistercian abbey now held by her friend Sir Walter Pendennis, who formerly gathered intelligence for Queen Elizabeth I. Sir Walter is now overseeing a squabbling bunch of scholars from Oxford and Cambridge searching for English claims to the land across the Western Sea. Susanna's skills as a herbalist and translator become lesser priorities this time as she tries to deduce why one scholar is killed in his own study. As she pores over documents that may or may not yield truths about the Americas, Susanna also must deal with her fiery nine-year-old foster daughter, Walter's invalid and bitter wife, and a furtive household romance. Emerson does a crackling good job of tying in real historical narratives like the Zeno document and the tales of sailor David Ingram with speculation about the death of explorer John Cabot and whether John Dee believed King Arthur sent colonists to the New World. GraceAnne DeCandido
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