An ambitious, touching tale of a Granadian’s cruel coming-of-age.
A young woman in 1513 struggles to survive when the Spanish Inquisition reaches her hometown of Granada in Cotton’s (Barbarossa's Barb, 2017) Renaissance romance.
Seventeen-year-old Eva de Pazia’s life is full of secrets. Her father, Iago, tells her that her extra toe, a birth defect, proves her mother’s adultery with the devil; years of his abuse have left Eva terrified of men and marriage. Her closest companions in her unhappy home are her older brother, Elias, and her polydactyl cat, Tabita. A devout Christian who longs to enter a convent, Eva discovers that her once-Jewish father’s conversion wasn’t sincere. When the Inquisition comes to town, Eva turns her father in, believing that he’ll only be fined and exposed; instead, the Inquisitors seize her family’s home and assets, burn her father at the stake, accuse her brother of witchcraft, and give Eva to Moorish merchant Baltasar Cerra. Cerra forces her to live with his majordomo, the smallpox-scarred Baseel Alcazar, as his mistress—but Baseel never touches her. Instead, the two begin an uneasy friendship, playing music together on their guitarras and discussing religion; as Eva schemes to escape, she realizes that she may be falling in love. Cotton’s book is rich in detail, full of the food, furnishings, fashions, and faiths of the multiethnic milieu of 16th-century Granada, where many Christian “converts” continued to practice Judaism or Islam behind closed doors. The narration occasionally shifts to Tabita’s point of view, and its feline musings provide an often funny perspective on events—it’s sure that producing a “human kitten” will cheer Eva up, for instance, and it’s often confused by its mistress’s lack of interest in men. The frequent flashbacks are framed by sometimes-creaky segues: “She remembered the day she had been given Tabita—a day she would never forget”; “Eva was pulled back into the present.” For the most part, however, Eva’s plight and inner torment are compelling as she learns the truth about her family, herself, and her world.
An ambitious, touching tale of a Granadian’s cruel coming-of-age.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9787281-5-1
Page Count: 428
Publisher: Renaissance Re-imprints
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
