Start of a Book
Alright, so I'm trying again at finding a good book.
I've started one called Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin, which I was more unsure of than the other one, since it involved an empowered woman in the twelfth century. Basically, it's a serial killer novel based before anyone knew what a serial killer was; small children are being killed on Holy days, and people start blaming Jews.
Henry II, who is currently in a precarious situation due to the recent murder of Thomas a Beckett, has to prove that it isn't a Jew without actually making himself seem the instigator of the investigation, and thus enrage the Papacy even more for protecting them. So he writes to Salerno for someone "versed in the causes of death," who knows Hebrew and English and is discrete.
And the doctor that they send is a woman, Adelia, which is what I was wary of. (I looked it up and fact: in Salerno in the twelfth century, women were admitted into the school of medicine. You learn something new every day, right?)
To my surprise, it's pretty good so far. One tricky feat that the author manages to pull off is displaying historical anti-semitism without either sounding anti-semitic herself or making a self-righteous fuss over the injustices against the Jewish people. And while being a period piece, it's neither pretentious or patronizing, which is an increasingly common problem in historical fiction; additionally, the author doesn't take far too many liberties with historical culture/fact. (While I don't know a whole lot about medieval Europe--it's not normally my thing--there are certain "liberties" authors tend to take that can be spotted a mile off.)
And there's no budding romance, as far as I can tell. Unless she ends up with the tax collector, Sir Rowley Picot, which I highly doubt will happen. For one, he's overweight, which is an indicator of him not being the "perfect man" that female writers tend to envision (superficial, I know, but true), and for another, as far as Adelia is concerned he's a prime suspect. And her male chaperone, for which I'm actually grateful she has, is a former castrato (former in that he doesn't sing, not that he grew his balls back) so there's no romance on that front.
Admittedly, I'm not very far in it, but from what I can tell, it's worth a read.
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I've started one called Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin, which I was more unsure of than the other one, since it involved an empowered woman in the twelfth century. Basically, it's a serial killer novel based before anyone knew what a serial killer was; small children are being killed on Holy days, and people start blaming Jews.
Henry II, who is currently in a precarious situation due to the recent murder of Thomas a Beckett, has to prove that it isn't a Jew without actually making himself seem the instigator of the investigation, and thus enrage the Papacy even more for protecting them. So he writes to Salerno for someone "versed in the causes of death," who knows Hebrew and English and is discrete.
And the doctor that they send is a woman, Adelia, which is what I was wary of. (I looked it up and fact: in Salerno in the twelfth century, women were admitted into the school of medicine. You learn something new every day, right?)
To my surprise, it's pretty good so far. One tricky feat that the author manages to pull off is displaying historical anti-semitism without either sounding anti-semitic herself or making a self-righteous fuss over the injustices against the Jewish people. And while being a period piece, it's neither pretentious or patronizing, which is an increasingly common problem in historical fiction; additionally, the author doesn't take far too many liberties with historical culture/fact. (While I don't know a whole lot about medieval Europe--it's not normally my thing--there are certain "liberties" authors tend to take that can be spotted a mile off.)
And there's no budding romance, as far as I can tell. Unless she ends up with the tax collector, Sir Rowley Picot, which I highly doubt will happen. For one, he's overweight, which is an indicator of him not being the "perfect man" that female writers tend to envision (superficial, I know, but true), and for another, as far as Adelia is concerned he's a prime suspect. And her male chaperone, for which I'm actually grateful she has, is a former castrato (former in that he doesn't sing, not that he grew his balls back) so there's no romance on that front.
Admittedly, I'm not very far in it, but from what I can tell, it's worth a read.
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