Review: "The Shadowy Horses" by Susanna Kearsley

From Goodreads:  Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea.

Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it—not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.

Here on the windswept shores, Verity may find the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Or she may uncover secrets someone buried for a reason.

My Thoughts:  I have no idea why I waited so long to read a Susanna Kearsley book!  I own several of her books but for some reason I continuously put off reading any of them despite the rave reviews I have read.  After reading The Shadowy Horses, I will be moving the rest of her books to the top of my TBR pile.

The Shadowy Horses seemed to have it all; history, mystery and romance with some archaeology thrown in.  I was really fascinated by all of the explanations of the work surrounding an archaeological dig: the tools, procedures and people made for interesting reading.  I also liked that the historical aspect of the story, the search for the Ninth Legion, was completely new to me.  I always enjoy reading about historical events and periods that I am not familiar with and the mystery surrounding what happened to the Ninth Legion made for really good reading.  And last but not least, I loved the ghost story.  It added some creepiness and made me want to read more to find out exactly what this ghost was up to.

The characters in this story were great.  There were likable, and not so likable, characters but they all brought something different to the story.  Verity and David were by far two of my favorites but to be honest, all of the characters were pretty interesting.  I think the author did a great job of putting a little romance between characters into the story but not so much that it overwhelmed everything else that was going on; the romance was part of the story but didn't make up the whole story.

The ending to the story was pretty cool and there were some major twists at the end which made for good reading.  Overall, The Shadowy Horses is a wonderful read and I can't wait to pick up more of Kearsley's books.  4 stars.