A welcome antidote to the usual melodramatic Borgia fare.
A poisoner in the court of the Borgia pope strives to protect His Holiness by rooting out an assassin, in the third of a series.
Francesca Giordano, daughter of a Jewish courtier to the Borgia pope Alexander VI, inherits her position when her father is murdered by assailants still unknown. This is only one of the mysteries tormenting Francesca; increasingly she has begun to suspect that her mother, Adriana, did not die while giving birth to her, as she was told. A professional poisoner, Francesca serves Alexander as a contract killer and also as a taster, examining and sampling every dish he is served. With cold calculation, or with the blood-thirsty frenzy that sometimes overtakes her, she has killed several men. She’s the confidante and intermittent mistress of Cesare, the Pope’s son, who has lately been impressed into the priesthood at the rank of Cardinal. Fearing plague in Rome and those who would thwart the Borgias’ plans for world domination, the Pope’s court, including his 13-year old daughter Lucrezia, decamp to the fortified town of Viterbo. Their entourage includes an unruly delegation of Spaniards from the court of Isabella and Ferdinand, tolerated because an alliance with Spain is crucial to Borgia ambitions. A series of sudden deaths among the household staff, which Francesca, who also serves the Borgias as a coroner, is at a loss to explain, leads her to suspect that an assassin may well have infiltrated the court. But who is the killer’s target? The Pope, Cesare, Lucrezia, Francesca herself, or Herrera, the dissolute Spanish envoy who hates Francesca, not least because she’s his rival for Cesare’s affection? Needing someone to trust, Francesca befriends an abbess who knows the truth about Adriana’s death. The persecution of the Cathar heretics two centuries before also has repercussions for Francesca and her charges. That Poole manages to hew a path through this thicket of complications is a testament to her considerable expository skill.
A welcome antidote to the usual melodramatic Borgia fare.Pub Date: May 22, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-60985-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her...
Avery Stafford, a lawyer, descendant of two prominent Southern families and daughter of a distinguished senator, discovers a family secret that alters her perspective on heritage.
Wingate (Sisters, 2016, etc.) shifts the story in her latest novel between present and past as Avery uncovers evidence that her Grandma Judy was a victim of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and is related to a woman Avery and her father meet when he visits a nursing home. Although Avery is living at home to help her parents through her father’s cancer treatment, she is also being groomed for her own political career. Readers learn that investigating her family’s past is not part of Avery's scripted existence, but Wingate's attempts to make her seem torn about this are never fully developed, and descriptions of her chemistry with a man she meets as she's searching are also unconvincing. Sections describing the real-life orphanage director Georgia Tann, who stole poor children, mistreated them, and placed them for adoption with wealthy clients—including Joan Crawford and June Allyson—are more vivid, as are passages about Grandma Judy and her siblings. Wingate’s fans and readers who enjoy family dramas will find enough to entertain them, and book clubs may enjoy dissecting the relationship and historical issues in the book.
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her fictional characters' lives.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28468-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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