A Desperate Fortune
By Susanna Kearsley
Touchstone, An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
478 Pages, Softcover
Sara Thomas suffers from Asperger’s, but it’s this part of the disease that gives her an uncanny ability to work with numbers and transcribe codes.
Her guardian angel Aunt Jacqui, who helped her cope with Asperger’s, recognized this ability early on in Sara’s life.
So it was no surprise that when a historic diary needed to be decoded, Jacqui turned to Sara for help. In decoding this diary, we learn about the life of exiled Jacobite Mary Dundas, who adapted a code to write the secrets of her part in a dangerous expedition.
This period in 1732 was a very unstable time with scandals that drove many into bankruptcy and ruin. Mary, posing as a sister to disguise the man accused of one of these scandals, is sent to accompany him out of harms way under the protection of Highlander Hugh MacPherson.
And it is during this work of decoding and the unraveling of this mystery, that Sara herself comes to terms with her own issues and makes choices that lead her to a life of romance and intrigue.
