A tense, occasionally explosive epic of family, friends and foes.
In the third installment of her Sons of Mercia series, Woods (Godric the Kingslayer, 2011, etc.) steers real-world historical hero Edric the Wild through bars, battlefields and his bold stand against the Norman Conquest.
This reimagined story of Edric’s life begins with him as a 16-year-old boy who awakens the morning after a brawl with Osbern FitzRichard, only to find himself accused of killing one of Osbern’s knights. The courtroom declaration of Edric’s innocence is only one juncture of the multifaceted, often brutal relationship between Edric—noble-hearted son of the “Kingslayer”—and Osbern, an authoritative young Norman who acts like a madman and struggles with a voice in his head he attributes to Ezekiel. Edric and Osbern, the two enemies, battle against a backdrop of English–Norman distrust. From strained meetings with their fathers to their unconventional means of embarking on matrimony, the off-and-on rivals are frequently juxtaposed to powerful effect. When Edric proposes to a probable fairy woman he barely knows, both of the boys’ grips on reality become questionable. What at first appears to be an open-and-shut case of insanity softens into possibility, as certain outlandish claims by Osbern, via his personal channel to Ezekiel, come to fruition. The plot takes alternating forms of dual family sagas, wartime actioner, traditional epic fantasy and humor-tinged thriller, which Woods skillfully layers with an appealing writing style. There are frequent surprises, too, and history buffs hungry for lucid detail will be pleased by the story’s impressive level of historical accuracy.
A tense, occasionally explosive epic of family, friends and foes.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475231250
Page Count: 760
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and mystery novels will be equally dazzled.
In this multigenerational novel inspired by Piazza’s own family, two women tell a story that begins in Sicily a hundred years ago and leads to a return in the present day.
The first narrative belongs to Sara Masala, a Philadelphia chef whose husband has just filed for divorce and full custody of their daughter; on top of that, her once-thriving restaurant has gone bankrupt and her great-aunt Rosie has died. It had always been Rosie’s dream to visit her birthplace in Sicily and take Sara with her, but now Sara will be making the trip solo—Rosie booked and paid for a nonrefundable ticket and hotel room for her. Although it seems impossible for Sara to leave right now, Rosie threw in one more twist—leaving Sara a deed to a plot of land that belonged to Rosie’s mother, Serafina. If Sara sells it, she can use the money to save her restaurant and, hopefully, her family. Sara makes the journey to the ancient mountain town of Caltabellessa and is taken under the wing of Giusy, the innkeeper and town gossip. As a child, Sara was always told that Serafina had died from the flu before she could make it to America. Giusy rips that idea apart when she drops the bomb that Serafina was actually murdered. As Sara digs into century-old secrets, her presence becomes a growing threat to the town’s carefully protected way of life. Interspersed with Sara’s journey is a secondary narrative belonging to Serafina, who provides context with Caltabellessa’s history and the challenges faced by women in early-20th-century Sicily. Serafina’s story is the beating heart of this novel, an honest look into the sacrifices of a young mother: “I barely had time to remember all the things I once wanted, all the lives I hoped to lead, but sometimes the desire all flooded back and I felt a small death.” This novel almost feels like two books in one, but the stories are inextricably bound, most effectively through the way Piazza writes about the universal experience of what it means to be a woman and a mother.
Fans of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and mystery novels will be equally dazzled.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474167
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Brimming with warmth and vitality, this new novel by the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) is a paean to the power of female courage. The butterflies are four smart and lovely Dominican sisters growing up during Trujillo's despotic regime. While her parents try desperately to cling to their imagined island of security in a swelling sea of fear and intimidation, Minerva Mirabal—the sharpest and boldest of the daughters, born with a fierce will to fight injustice—jumps headfirst into the revolutionary tide. Her sisters come upon their courage more gradually, through a passionate, protective love of family or through the sheer impossibility of closing their eyes to the horrors around them. Together, their bravery and determination meld into a seemingly insurmountable force, making Trujillo, for all his power, appear a puny adversary. Alvarez writes beautifully, whether creating the ten-year-old Maria Teresa's charming diary entries or describing Minerva's trip home after her first unsettling confrontation with Trujillo: ``As the road darkened, the beams of our headlights filled with hundreds of blinded moths. Where they hit the windshield, they left blurry marks, until it seemed like I was looking at the world through a curtain of tears.'' If the Mirabal sisters are iron-winged butterflies, their men—father and husbands—often resemble those blinded moths, feeble and fallible. Still, the women view them with kind, forgiving eyes, and though there's no question of which sex is being celebrated here, a sweet and accepting spirit toward frailty, if not human cruelty, prevails. This is not Garc°a M†rquez or Allende territory (no green hair or floating bodies); Alvarez's voice is her own, grounded in realism yet alive with the magic of everyday human beings who summon extraordinary courage and determination to fight for their beliefs. As mesmerizing as the Mirabal sisters themselves. (First printing of 40,000; $40,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56512-038-8
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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