An immersion in the life of a queen who helped shape the Western world.
British author Chadwick (Shadows and Strongholds,2005, etc.) begins a trilogy chronicling the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a queen equal to kings.
The tale opens with William, Duke of Aquitaine, mortally ill. To ensure Aquitaine’s future, he arranges the marriage of his daughter, 13-year-old Eleanor—Alienor, as written then—to Louis, the French crown prince. Europe in 1137 was a jumble of fiefdoms, every ruler seeking alliances of power, and so Alienor acquiesces to her fate. At first, Louis proves an acceptable husband, but as king, he stumbles from one disaster to another, quickly becoming "a querulous man, old before his time, full of righteous anger, his guilt and self-loathing twisting within." Daughters are born rather than a male heir, and the marriage collapses. Alienor demands annulment, granted only after politicized negotiations. Freedom brings peril: An "irresistible marriage prize to someone," Alienor risks being kidnapped and forced into marriage by any rogue coveting Aquitaine’s riches. Chadwick’s prodigious research sets the scene, whether in castles, trekking from one dukedom to another or on Louis’ Holy Crusade, all extraordinarily detailed, if occasionally too replete with duplicities, court manners and poisoned clerics with political agendas. Leaving court and bedroom lamentations behind, Chadwick shifts into high gear when Henry, Duke of Normandy and future ruler of England, seeks marriage. Only 18, nine years younger than Alienor, but her equal in intelligence and courage, Henry, "a force of nature carrying all before him," roars into the narrative with the sure-footed power of a king-to-be. Other characters abound, some sympathetic in love and loyalty, like Alienor’s vassal and first love, Geoffrey de Rancon, whom she cannot marry lest she fracture peace in Aquitaine. Chadwick layers on each page the great passions of medieval life, all murderous manipulations and aristocratic ambitions, leaving readers only to speculate how these teenagers stepped astride history to rule.
An immersion in the life of a queen who helped shape the Western world.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-9406-8
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
A satisfyingly streamlined World War II thriller.
During the Nazi occupation of Paris, an architect devises ingenious hiding places for Jews.
In architect Belfoure’s fiction debut, the architectural and historical details are closely rendered, while the characters are mostly sketchy stereotypes. Depraved Gestapo colonel Schlegal and his torturer lackeys and thuggish henchmen see their main goal as tracking down every last Jew in Paris who has not already been deported to a concentration camp. Meanwhile, Lucien, an opportunistic architect whose opportunities have evaporated since 1940, when the Germans marched into Paris, is desperate for a job—so desperate that when industrialist Manet calls upon him to devise a hiding place for a wealthy Jewish friend, he accepts, since Manet can also offer him a commission to design a factory. While performing his factory assignment (the facility will turn out armaments for the Reich), Lucien meets kindred spirit Herzog, a Wehrmacht officer with a keen appreciation of architectural engineering, who views capturing Jews as an ill-advised distraction from winning the war for Germany. The friendship makes Lucien’s collaboration with the German war effort almost palatable—the money isn’t that good. Bigger payouts come as Manet persuades a reluctant Lucien to keep designing hideouts. His inventive cubbyholes—a seamless door in an ornamental column, a staircase section with an undetectable opening, even a kitchen floor drain—all help Jews evade the ever-tightening net of Schlegal and his crew. However, the pressure on Lucien is mounting. A seemingly foolproof fireplace contained a disastrous fatal flaw. His closest associates—apprentice Alain and mistress Adele—prove to have connections to the Gestapo, and, at Manet’s urging, Lucien has adopted a Jewish orphan, Pierre. The Resistance has taken him for short drives to warn him about the postwar consequences of collaboration, and his wife, Celeste, has left in disgust. Belfoure wastes no time prettying up his strictly workmanlike prose. As the tension increases, the most salient virtue of this effort—the expertly structured plot—emerges.
A satisfyingly streamlined World War II thriller.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8431-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
A curious fusion of the predictable and the unconventional which, given the appetite for Paris, love, and wartime tragedy,...
While a timid French music teacher grieves the death of her partner, outside, on the streets of Paris, his ghost lingers, lending historical context and soulful musings to a story of unresolved anguish and late love.
Chaudhry’s elegant debut rests on an unusual and risky premise: It is narrated in part by a soul in limbo. Julien Dalsace has died before the story opens, and his old-fashioned voice sets the scene: “The scent of lilacs on the breeze stirs dormant phantoms to life, but music is sorcery more potent.” We are in Paris in the year of the bicentennial, 1989, observing, like Julien, the struggles of his surviving partner, Sylvie, to cope with her loss. Julien, although spectral, is the novel’s lynchpin. The romance between him—an older, upper-class, married Jewish psychologist—and the quiveringly sensitive piano teacher is the beating heart of the story. But there’s another thread, taking the reader back to 1942, when the Jews of Paris were rounded up and deported, including Julien’s sister, Clara, and her twin daughters. Julien never forgave himself for his absence in London during World War II and his failure to save Clara, but a secret folder that emerges after his death offers Sylvie the opportunity to conclude his quest to discover the fate of Clara’s girls. Julien’s curious perspective—on history, on other ghosts, on the beauty but complexity of France generally and the Île Saint-Louis, his corner of Paris, in particular—is the novel’s most original aspect. Elsewhere, while Chaudhry brings a kind of reverent seriousness to events both past and present, her approach is more familiar. Characters are often simple, like the kindly Jewish baker, the protective (but kindly) concierge, the sympathetic American lodgers, and even Sylvie’s anthropomorphized terrier, Coco. And resolutions, even sad ones, arrive with coincidence and ease.
A curious fusion of the predictable and the unconventional which, given the appetite for Paris, love, and wartime tragedy, might well touch a popular nerve.Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54460-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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