This whopper of a novel is perfect for readers who want to lose themselves in a long historical yarn.
The author of Shadows and Light (1984) and Wakefield Hall (1993) presents a remarkable 12th-century noblewoman’s journey from a French country estate to the side of the greatest queen of the Middle Ages.
“Never before had I seen a woman who was old…yet alluring. Her fair skin was wrinkled, but her vivid dark eyes, framed by a luxuriant expanse of brow, were still beautiful and bespoke an undaunted spirit.” That’s our first glimpse of the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine, English ruler and mother of rulers, in Stanfill’s lavishly detailed historical novel. That description is given to us by Isabelle, a brilliant young woman who tries and fails to fit the mold of baby-making machine that the age required. It’s disappointing that it takes 500 pages to get to this exciting encounter, but Stanfill amply fills the preceding pages with a portrait of the private struggles and desperation of aristocratic women like Isabelle who, despite their best efforts, fail to satisfy the ambitions of their husbands. For many, such failure left them with only two choices: going home to their parents or to an abbey. Isabelle eventually finds refuge in an abbey patronized by Queen Eleanor, who seeks a companion in old age. Not just anyone will do—Eleanor requires someone who can write, play chess, and keep up with her sparkling wit. Trained in the classics by her grandfather, Isabelle is the right person for that role. Eleanor’s life and the complicated relationship between England and France play in the novel’s background until fate brings the two characters together. All the exotic, romantic elements of the medieval world—falconry, ancient ruins, rustic healers, feasts by warm candlelight, ominous prophecies—are here as well as a frightening figure from Isabelle’s past, intent on ruining her and those she loves. Brave and defiant, Isabelle comes to understand that doing great things, as Eleanor has done, isn’t necessary to triumph in life. Sometimes, as she realizes about the old motto vincit qui patitur (“He conquers who survives”), the simple act of living is victory enough.
This whopper of a novel is perfect for readers who want to lose themselves in a long historical yarn.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-307-422-4
Page Count: 832
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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