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This book didn’t start out very well. It opens like a bad romance novel – clustered beautiful, flawless virgins in a convent, daring noblemen who want to steal that virginity, etc. Luckily, The Venetian Mask improves once the plot gets going, about halfway through the book. It centers around two girls, Elena and Marietta, who are best friends immediately after their joint entry into the convent, and both marry powerful, well-connected men who just happen to have a family vendetta between them. These matters complicate the relations between the friends and what happens next is what comprises the best part of the book.
The beginning feels too much like a summary. The author picks up the lives of the girls at various points, but all she manages to show is that convent life is restrained and boring and as a result the girls fall in love far too easily. As a side note, the love is this book is extremely unrealistic, and mostly consists of what I’d call infatuation. Fairly typical for a romance novel feel. The book follows the girls’ exploits into this love, winding up with them married as mentioned. Only then does the plot get interesting, about 200 pages into the book, so I won’t ruin anything else for other potential readers.
The writing similarly has a romance novel feel. The book isn’t particularly written well and every character has that air of flawless beauty and everlasting sexual attraction. They aren’t particularly compelling personally, either. Both women have strength but in different ways, and neither of them have any discernible flaws. The men are slightly better, but essentially either noble or wicked.
It gets interesting, though. The plot moves quickly once it starts moving and I quite liked it. It becomes fairly clear that this isn’t a romance novel despite its tepid beginning and the variety of relationships that spring up throughout the text. And even though the characters aren’t exciting, I liked the women and I didn’t really want anything to happen to them. The ending was about what I’d expected given the feel of the novel, although executed in a way I didn’t expect.
So, in conclusion, The Venetian Mask is a quick read and fairly enjoyable. I’d probably recommend other historical fiction first, but I certainly wouldn’t dissuade someone from reading the book.
Margaret of York always plays a small role in historical fiction dealing with the Yorkist side of the Wars of the Roses. Sister to Edward IV and Richard III, she is often a figure in her childhood and young adulthood but vanishes from the picture once she marries Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. I was very happy to find a book which focused on her and covered her life in Burgundy.
The author acknowledges that much here is speculation. Little is known of Margaret outside of her itinerary. Kings are hard enough to trace in the middle ages, so it is not surprising that a princess and duchess would be similar. Regardless, Smith and I share the same view, that historical fiction is meant to fill in the bones of history, not change their shape. In that sense, she does an admirable job from what I know of, and nothing she introduces is implausible, except a scene at the end which probably would not have been acceptable. Margaret’s love for Anthony Woodville is certainly possible. Her duty as a royal princess was to ally with foreign powers, not to follow her heart, regardless of what her brothers did. They were men, after all — and Edward IV’s disadvantageous marriage continues to bring scorn upon his head more than five hundred years later.
Smith’s writing is not as polished as it could be, but neither does it detract from the story she tells. At times, that story does drag, especially in the beginning as Margaret is basically waiting to be married. Nothing much the author could have done to change that, and she does insert some extraneous events in an attempt to speed up the pace. It is by far most interesting when Margaret travels to Burgundy for her wedding.
I also approve of the author’s decision regarding the ending. It was the best choice.
All in all, certainly recommended for historical fiction readers, but may be a bit too lengthy for those of us who aren’t fascinated by the Middle Ages.
This book’s two main characters are a courtesan and her dwarf, detailing their struggles to escape a captured Rome and re-establish themselves in Venice. There is a fair bit of mystery in it as well as they find it hard to trust those in their new home — at least, Bucino does.
I have to confess that I found this historical fiction on the mediocre side. I just didn’t see anything captivating about it. It was written lightly, the mystery was confusing, and there was no pull compelling me to read more. In the first few pages I thought it might be one of those books that I never finished. It recovered from there, luckily, but never amounted to anything except a sense that it was missing something. I did like the ending, which redeemed it a little; very poignant and suitable for the subject matter. Otherwise, though, not much exciting to read here. I’d probably recommend her first novel, THE BIRTH OF VENUS, instead, unless you are fascinated by Renaissance Venice and wouldn’t mind a bit of mystery and not much else.
In A HOLLOW CROWN, Helen Hollick novelizes the young life of Emma of Normandy, wife to Aethelred Unraed and Cnut, two kings of England. This book is a prequel to HAROLD THE KING, which I read late last year, but was written afterwards. Not surprisingly, Emma’s life is fascinating, and Hollick does a good job with her growth from young teenage girl given in marriage against her will to powerful Queen. Her transformation is believable and I liked her, acknowledging what effect the impact of her sometimes difficult life must have had on her.
This book is an improvement over HAROLD; Hollick’s writing has either improved or she has gotten a better editor this time around. The stories are both fascinating. I like how Hollick takes history as we know it and keeps it valid, not changing anything but filling in the holes, which is in my opinion exactly what historical fiction should do. With the Anglo-Saxons, this is fairly easy as there aren’t many facts to handle, but Hollick does a good job and makes us feel like we can step into their world, something that I rarely experience as few are interested in this fascinating period. I like how she ties in the next book, leaving dangling threads that I know are picked up.
Emma was an admirable woman; she survived a great deal to emerge powerful and with authority. Hollick has done a good job making her into an admirable character as well. The book is long and sometimes drags, understandable considering how long Emma’s life is, but could probably have been spiced up by skipping some of the slow parts. With a better editor and some better pacing, Hollick could become one of the genre’s finest.
Sara Gruen takes us into the seldom-fictionally explored world of the circus during the Depression with Water for Elephants. Given that it’s a circus, the individual nature of each character is almost inevitable; every person has their own talent to add to the circus, after all. Gruen interweaves Jacob’s narration of the circus with his present 93 year old perspective on the world; in short, he is reminiscing about his past life as he faces his current purposeless one in a nursing home. It’s an interesting viewpoint, and adds some mystery to the mix as the reader wonders how Jacob got to be where he is given his start.
I liked it, I felt it was solid historical fiction, but I didn’t feel jolted from it when I didn’t pick it up for two weeks due to a trip. I thought the little nuances of fantastical story that was really fact were the best part, like the antics of the elephant. Most of the characters were never built up very well, except for Jacob, whose is interesting, sympathetic, and imperfect. The ending was masterful and unexpected. Overall, a good book, worth reading.
This historical fiction novel focuses on the women who loved Shelley, Byron, and Keats, and how these three poets had a profound effect on their lives and loves.
It was certainly interesting. I knew little about these poets’ lives and I feel somewhat enlightened, at least as much as I can verify as truth, and I think Morgan managed to capture the attitude of the time very well and the inspiration for these poets’ greatest works. Some of the women were sympathetic characters, especially Mary and Fanny, but the novel spent far too much time on Caroline Lamb, who was the least interesting and had the least influence on any of the poets. I felt sorry for her in a strange sort of way, but during her parts it felt as though the plot wasn’t moving and I was far more interested in getting back to the other women. Fanny disappears for about 200 pages, which is a shame because I liked her.
Except for the fact that the plot is loose and doesn’t move much, it’s a good book. There is certainly a plot there, but the tension is occasionally ruined by a focus on other, less interesting characters. I understand that real life is not like a novel, but a novelist should structure the work to keep the reader interested, not focus on characters whose importance to the book faded halfway through.
I liked the variety of prose styles; occasionally Morgan tosses in a first person perspective or a play, which seems like it could be too clever but worked well. I liked her writing in general and I liked some of the characters. Another good historical fiction, but not great.
I really liked this book! I enjoyed Galland’s last effort, The Fool’s Tale, but this one definitely improves on it. The story begins with Willem and Lienor of Dole, brother and sister whose friend, the minstrel Jouglet, has great plans for them, involving a trip for Willem to the emperor to become a knight. The tale is very loosely based on the medieval poem “The Romance of the Rose”, and I mean loosely – the author admits herself that she changed and embellished freely. She also lays no claim to historical accuracy, so I will not be commenting on that here. Any author who excuses him or herself in order to prevent readers from claiming the book’s fiction as truth has gained my appreciation.
The book was amazingly well plotted. I couldn’t imagine all the twists and turns the author had going. I struggled with guessing what was going to happen and worried over the characters’ fates, particularly towards the end. I could hardly believe how clever it was. In addition, the wit is perfectly suited to the tradition of medieval courtly love, while subtly showing us what may have gone on behind the scenes. I laughed often. I think Galland did a wonderful job of getting across the teasing nature of such interchanges; we now can hardly imagine that this devotion would be false, but she shows that it wasn’t necessarily the case.
Jouglet was a great character and worked very well as a center for the novel. The rest of the characters almost felt like supporting cast to Jouglet, but I liked almost all of them, and Galland includes one character with an extreme moral dilemma. Watching him shows off her talent for getting so close to reality and human emotion.
Also, the ending was amazing. It made me very happy.
Something else I enjoyed about this book was how different it was from The Fool’s Tale; even its tone was different and I’d hardly have been able to tell that it was written by the same woman. I think Galland is a talent to watch for. I’ll certainly be buying her next book. Honesty, compelling characters, and brilliant writing – I couldn’t ask for that much more. It’s probably not accurate middle ages, but as I’m not expecting that, I’m very happy to recommend this as great historical fiction.
I think that this was largely a mediocre book, to start off with, mostly due to the fact that it was a romance novel in unlikely historical trappings.
Ostensibly, this novel is about Joan, the “Fair Maid of Kent”, who we all know from the history and the title of the novel is going to marry Edward the Black Prince (of Wales). I was hoping for a more detailed fictional take on her life. Instead, I got a romance novel. I did expect some romance, because it is obviously about how she and Edward fall in love in part, but Joan’s life had a lot going on otherwise and I felt that was de-emphasized in favor of the fact that she is constantly pining for Edward.
Okay, historical inaccuracies: namely, neither Joan nor Edward were known by their nicknames during their lifetime, and anyone who has done any research will notice that there is no contemporary record of their names. Moreover, the chronology of Joan’s life is inaccurate. Some unlikely elements were added in favor of the plot, but it’s mostly the blatant inaccuracies, which are so frequently used.
Secondly, this is basically a romance novel. When Joan’s life doesn’t have much to do with Edward, it is skipped over, except when one particular exciting event happens. And (spoilers here) the novel ends with the marriage of Joan and Edward. What about afterwards? I would have been far more interested to learn how Joan thought while Edward was off winning victories and how she acted with her children and what happened after Edward died. I thought the novel would be more of a fictionalized biography, because that’s how it comes off by reading the back. It isn’t, it’s just a romance novel.
In the end, I would call this mediocre, and probably recommend it to someone who reads romance novels, not historical fiction. It doesn’t do badly as a romance, but it pretends to be something that it isn’t.
The Birth of Venus is about a young girl, Alessandra, in Renaissance Florence that is quickly spiraling out of control. She is a bit ahead of her time, as this novel is definitely done from a feminist perspective, but I liked her spirit and her curiosity and her relentlessness. The novel grabs you quickly with a suspenseful and then leaves you wondering how the prologue happened for most of the text. Luckily, there are answers to that, and other questions as well.
I enjoyed the book quite a bit. The setting was well-drawn and I felt very true to the Renaissance. Alessandra was a sympathetic character. Also, this is somewhat strange to comment on, but for a novel that involves romance, it wasn’t stereotypical at all. It is to me fairly original in its plot, which I always appreciate. I enjoyed the author’s prose style, especially in comparison to the last book I read, because I felt that I could get close to the characters and understand them, particularly Alessandra, and at times the density of her emotion struck me, too.
I did find the book historically improbable, but for once I don’t think this detracted from it. I wasn’t terribly surprised by one particular aspect of the ending, although to be honest I can’t remember why I guessed it, but I didn’t see some of the other events coming. Overall, I think it passes in the history department, as it doesn’t commit any blatant inaccuracies, only might-have-beens.
All in all, The Birth of Venus is an immersing historical experience that I would certainly recommend to someone else.
Abundance is the tale of Marie Antoinette, France’s doomed queen, slandered by many, but lately attempts to rescue her reputation have been made. Abundance is not an exception, portrayed Marie Antoinette as a naive girl, even when she is a woman, determined to do her duty but ultimately failing to understand what the populace needs from her.
It’s a challenge to get into this book. Marie Antoinette’s narration is strange and distant, which means it takes a good few pages to get used to and feel that you like her. She is her own impediment to reader’s affection, given that she is so distant from the real world throughout the novel. I don’t know that this is a fault of the novel, but she expresses her care for the people and how she does not wish to live extravagantly when she is surrounded by opulence. She’s almost too naive to care about, until the end.
The prose is well done other than this odd distant feel, and the other characters are portrayed fairly reasonably. I just find the entire situation hard to believe; luckily, I have Marie Antoinette: The Journey, on which this book was based, waiting to be read, so that I will be better able to justify the novel’s historical judgment. The plot moves along quickly, skipping years where nothing much happened, focusing only on the events. It is interesting to see the French Revolution from the perspective of the royal family, as I feel we are more typically given the history from the revolutionaries’ view.
In short, I found Marie Antoinette too saintly to be real, though I doubt she committed all the crimes that the populace claimed, but I did find the other characters and the relationships in the novel to be genuine. I would say that Abundance is a fairly typical historical fiction, not bad but not great either.
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