A deserving woman from history gets her moment in the spotlight.
Taylor’s historical novel chronicles the adventures of a remarkable noblewoman in the early part of the Hundred Years War between France and England.
In the mid-14th century, Jeanne de Flandre, a Breton aristocrat, is an independent and insightful woman happily married to John Montfort, who respects her intellect and counsel “because she always used her insights to further his position.” When John is named Duke of Brittany in the will of his half-brother Duke John III, the dying duke’s niece, Jeanne de Penthièvre (daughter of John III’s deceased full brother, Guy) is incensed. Against a backdrop of shifting alliances among the towns and villages of Brittany, rumor-mongering among the French royalty, and court machinations that result in the invalidation of Duke John III’s will, King Philip of France imprisons John. John charges Jeanne to “do nothing to jeopardize the possibility of regaining the title and securing our son’s rightful inheritance…for now, our cause is in your hands.” She moves their young son and daughter, along with a small loyal army and the ducal treasury, to safe havens in Rennes and then Hennebort. Her leadership in routing the army that is laying siege to Hennebort is an inspiration to the fiercely independent Bretons, who dub her “Jeanne de la Flamme.” She forges an alliance with King Edward III of England, who needs Brittany’s help for his own designs on the French throne. Edward convinces her to bring her children to England for their safety…then turns the tables on her. Taylor builds on historical events with believable dialogue and action to bring Jeanne de Flandre to life as a fully realized woman. Political intrigue, ship movements, and battle plans mix with details of everyday life in the mid-1300s to propulsively move the story forward. Weaving Jeanne’s analysis into the narrative adds depth. Much like the fiction of Bernard Cornwell and Philipa Gregory, this book will enchant readers interested in well researched historical fiction.
A deserving woman from history gets her moment in the spotlight.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781685135201
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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