Nicole Robichaud, (view spoiler)[also known as Elspeth Harrow (hide spoiler)], lives in Halifax now, with her birth parents, close tNova Scotia, 1774—
Nicole Robichaud, (view spoiler)[also known as Elspeth Harrow (hide spoiler)], lives in Halifax now, with her birth parents, close to her adoptive sister and brother-in-law, Anne and Cyril. Nicole loves her newfound family dearly, but feels compelled by duty to become Uncle Charles’ heir. She sails to England, confident that she’s doing the right thing but swamped with anxiety. She forms a friendship with Emily Madden, the ship captain’s wife, and tentatively flirts with first mate Gordon Goodwind. Yet at her core, Nicole is still restless and rootless.
British high society proves intimidating. Her uncle’s grand residence feels too big and opulent, and the other nobles expect the heir of Harrow Hall to glitter like the chandeliers above. Uncle Charles has problems of his own—he’s one of the only Tories arguing in Parliament for the independence of the American colonies, which has not made him popular. The stress aggravates an already pressing heart condition. He needs to finalize his succession soon.
Tragedy drives Anne to England, with something unspeakably precious in tow. As she and Nicole support each other with sisterhood and Scripture, they wonder if they’ve got their destinies all wrong…
No content advisory needed. The book deals with mature subject matter—namely death—in a gentle, reassuring manner. Nothing here a twelve-year-old reader can’t handle if they’re so inclined.
This book relies on deus ex machina even more heavily than The Sacred Shore did, but I think that’s the point the authors want to make—God is literally present in the machine of the world, bringing unlikely cogs together for purposes only He can see. It would not work for every book, but here it works well enough.
The other parts that bothered me were minor. One is the name of Harrow Hall. In all the British classics I’ve read and period dramas I’ve watched, it doesn’t seem that grand English manor houses are usually named after their owners. The de Bourghs owned Rosings, the Darcys owned Pemberley, the Bertrams owned Mansfield, and the Crawleys owned Downton.
The other aspect I found odd was how both girls seemed to think of Catherine and Andrew as their main set of parents, even though Nicole was raised by Louise and Henri. The Robichauds disappear about two chapters in, while the Harrows are a presence throughout.
Nicole continues to be a brave and steady lead character, who grows in spine and soul. Anne never gets quite the same amount of detail, but she still has a definite personality and arc, rising from her grief strong and hopeful. It was cute how they wound up studying the Bible together in their time of need, just like their moms before them.
Cyril was sweet, (view spoiler)[but not around long enough to really take shape on his own. His death is sad because he’s young and has so much to live for; I just never felt like I knew him as a character (hide spoiler)]. Thomas and Gordon (seriously, Gordon Goodwind is the best sailor name ever) both have potential, and I know that they’ll get fleshed out more in the next book.
John is adorable and I hope that he stays safe and healthy.
The last quibble is a matter of historical accuracy, not aesthetic quality. The characters, particularly Charles, seemed to have it in their heads that the American Revolution was about freedom of religion. The hope of religious freedom was what drove many colonists to settle in the future States—the Puritans of New England, the Quakers and Anabaptists of Pennsylvania, and the Catholics of Maryland were all driven out of Britain. The war posed a religious conflict for some of the many denominations in the colonies; Anglicans had to reconcile the Divine Right of Kings with the Declaration of Independence, while Quakers were forbidden to take up arms for either side (although some did, notably including General Nathanael Green). But the main causes of the war were secular: the colonists wanted Parliamentary representation.
Overall, while this book wasn’t as good as The Meeting Place, I did enjoy it and look forward to the rest of the series. ...more
King Artos has been dead a hundred years, and nothing of Rome remains in Britain beyond the increasingly rare Christian faith aBritain, circa 584 A.D.
King Artos has been dead a hundred years, and nothing of Rome remains in Britain beyond the increasingly rare Christian faith and the ruins that dot the countryside. The Saxons are coming.
The Britons made a valiant last rally against the Saxons, but they were crushed. Among them were the father and older brother of fifteen-year-old Owain, who wanted to fight but lay incapacitated for most of the battle. The only survivor of that force, he leaves the corpses and sets off for climes unknown. He is accompanied by a mysterious hound, whom he names simply Dog.
Owain makes a slow journey toward the coast. In a dead city, he and Dog meet Regina, a beggar girl clinging to life through sheer will. She joins them, but when she falls ill, Owain must leave her to heal with one Saxon family while he sells himself to another.
As he grows up, he joins in battle for his homeland—but his homeland is not the same place he knew as a child. Will these people be Saxon or British? Will they be pagan or Christian? Will anything of Arthur and Rome survive the present chaos?
Content Advisory Violence: A few battle sequences, not gory but still full of death. A man dies after being thrown by a wild horse. Young men pretend to abduct unmarried girls as part of a wedding ritual.
Sex: A beggar girl is almost kidnapped by a group of violent men; rape is never mentioned, but the threat is clearly present. Later on, that same girl runs away from the homestead where she’s been indentured, to avoid becoming a concubine. A cruel young man nurses an obsession with the daughter of a neighboring lord, which he shows by attempting to kidnap her during the faux abduction ritual, and later demanding her hand in marriage even though she’s clearly terrified of him.
Nightmare Fuel: The opening scene is Owain extracting himself from the corpses of all his kinsmen and friends, who died fighting the Saxons. Later, someone accidentally touches a skeleton in an abandoned house.
Politics & Religion: Sutcliff takes a largely neutral view of the tension between Germanic paganism and Christianity in early medieval Britain. Owain is raised Christian, but occasionally prays to Norse and Roman gods as the years go on.
Conclusions I’ve been consistently impressed with all the Rosemary Sutcliff books I’ve picked up so far, and Dawn Wind is no exception.
Owain is a plausible, detailed character with a complex inner life. We learn his obvious major concerns—his frustrated patriotism, his mourning for his family, and his fierce loyalty to Regina—while also picking up details, like his consistent compassion for animals and his drifting between religions, that a lesser author might have skipped.
Regina, unlike most of the women in this series so far, is in a lot of the story. She’s believably skittish, admirably tenacious, and surprisingly kind. Her and Owain’s relationship is subtle, warm, and eminently shippable.
The supporting cast are all vivid, from Priscus and Priscilla in their forlorn farmhouse, to Brani with his green eyes aglitter with vengeance. When I first read the name “Vadir” I wanted to make a Star Wars joke, but soon I was so swept up in his part of the tale that I completely forgot. This fictional treatment of the historical St. Augustine of Canterbury was a bit heavy on subjective analysis—Owain concludes that the Archbishop had courage, faith, and zeal, but lacked compassion, after watching the man at a diplomatic meeting for a few hours. That said, I found this Augustine absolutely intriguing and wish he had been in more of the book.
And what evocative scenes this story has! From Owain stumbling over the corpses of his people and finding Dog…the unnamed refugee girl clutching her cage full of doves…Regina and the little blue songbird…the olivewood fire…Owain burying the dolphin ring…the ruined temple of Silvanus…the shipwreck…the incident with the silver horse, who receives St. Augustine’s blessing…it really enthralled me.
My only gripe with this book is that it feels a little too long compared to the precision of The Eagle of the Ninth or The Lantern Bearers.
Britain, late 4th Century A.D. Aquila is in the Roman Army. When word reaches Britain that all troops have been recalled to fortify the city of Rome aBritain, late 4th Century A.D. Aquila is in the Roman Army. When word reaches Britain that all troops have been recalled to fortify the city of Rome against continental barbarians, Aquila expects to ship out with the rest of the soldiers. But the young man can’t bear to leave his elderly father and younger sister, so he slips away and runs home, lighting the beacon at Rutupiae (present-day Richborough) for the last time.
Our hero feels guilty for abandoning his post, but he feels no connection to Rome. If he must die, he would rather perish protecting his family. No sooner has he returned than the Saxons invade, killing his father and servants, carrying off his sister Flavia, and leaving Aquila himself tied up for the beasts to devour. From here he is found by a Jutish raiding party and brought to Jutland (now Denmark) in chains, saved from death but forced into slavery.
After three years, Aquila is brought back to Britain to serve his Norse warlord master. He schemes to escape, avenge his father, and rescue Flavia if she still lives. But this Britain has nothing in common with the Britain he left behind…
Content Advisory Violence: Several battles, none overly graphic. Usually the reader only hears about the deaths rather than see them happen. One of the fatalities is Aquila’s father’s dog, who defended her human to the last. That part made me cry.
It’s implied that Flavia was raped after being taken captive. When her brother offers escape, she decides to stay with the Saxon man who took her for a wife, and the child they have together.
Flavian the younger gets flung from his horse and grievously wounded.
Sex: Nothing. (view spoiler)[When Aquila and Ness have a baby, it seems shocking because it’s not even clear until then that their marriage was consummated. (hide spoiler)]
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Much boisterous boozing at feasts, as befits the setting.
Nightmare Fuel: Sutcliff manages to make an owl flying out of the woods sound terrifying.
Politics and Religion: The most moral character in the book is Brother Ninnias, who removes Aquila’s slave collar and beseeches him not to seek vengeance, a lesson our protagonist has to learn for himself.
Conclusions Every entry in Sutcliff’s Dolphin Ring saga is more impressive than the last. The Lantern Bearers might be my favorite so far.
When Aquila bails on the army and flees back to the ancestral farmstead, I assumed he’d get a few chapters with his dad and sister while Sutcliff lulled her readers into a false sense of security. He doesn’t even get one whole chapter. The family we got to know so well in the first three-and-a-half chapters are torn asunder by the fourth.
The speed of the book testifies to Sutcliff’s storytelling skills. The novel is short, and even the small characters like Thormod and Rowena are memorable.
And so many twists! I really could not predict the directions this story took.
The message is sad, the journey Aquila takes on is profound.
While it’s labeled “juvenile fiction” and contains no sex or gore, the subject matter is not particularly appropriate or accessible for children. Warmly recommended for teens and adults. And look out for a fun Arthurian cameo!...more
Alexios Flavius Aquila is an excellent swordsman but an immature military leader. A disastrous decision nearly gets him discharged from the RoA.D. 349
Alexios Flavius Aquila is an excellent swordsman but an immature military leader. A disastrous decision nearly gets him discharged from the Roman army, but his high-ranking uncle begrudgingly pulls some strings, and well-meaning-but-inept Alexios is transferred instead.
The young man quickly discovers that discharge might have been the more comfortable option. He’s been sent to mind the fort on the very edge of Caledonia (present-day Scotland), the most northern and remote part of the Roman Empire. The soldiers here are some of the toughest and fiercest in the Empire. They call themselves the Frontier Wolves, after the wolf-pelt cloaks they wear in the tradition of Hercules’ Nemean Lion-skin.
Outside the fort walls dwell numerous Celtic tribes. The Votadini are tentatively friendly with the Romans, while others, especially the Picts, are notoriously hostile. In these far northern climes, the Druids still hold power, and they have no forgiven Rome for driving them out of southern Britain. Imperial forces here must also stay alert for conspiracies between the Scots and their sea-raiding cousins from unconquerable Hibernia (Ireland).
Alexios discovers some comforts in this bleak landscape. He’s treated well by the Votadini chieftain and becomes best friends with the old man’s two sons, steady Cunorix and irrepressible Connla. But the peace is fragile. If the Druids don’t break it, Alexios’ Roman superiors might…
Content Advisory Violence: Several battle scenes, a single combat, and one execution by stabbing—none gratuitously gory, but most involving the deaths of characters we’ve come to care about. Casualties include women, children, horses, and a kitty cat.
Sex: It is implied that a young Celtic widow might have been raped by a marauding tribe. This is never confirmed, and a younger reader probably wouldn’t pick up on the hint.
Language: One soldier swears by Christ, while his compatriots usually swear by Mithras. Sometimes they mix things up by swearing by Ahimran or Satan.
Substance Abuse: The Votadini hold a great feast wherein the vast majority of warriors get impressively sloshed.
Politics and Religion: Brief internal monologue from Alexios about why he thinks the Mithras cult is better suited to army life than Christianity. A Druid is portrayed as a sinister character, although he is shown as a political evil rather than a spiritual one, and it makes perfect sense for our POV character to see the man as a villain.
Nightmare Fuel: The Votadini play a primitive ballgame with the severed head of a calf. The foul thing leaves a faint bloody residue all over the playing ground, and one of its eyeballs falls out during the game.
Conclusions Frontier Wolf was published in 1980, twenty-three years after The Eagle of the Ninth. in her foreword, Sutcliff states that she had always wanted this story to be part of the Dolphin Ring sequence, but no evidence of Roman occupation that far north had been unearthed until the late seventies. Chronologically, this installment fits between The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers.
I bring up the publication order and time gap because they might explain the significantly darker content and tone of this book compared to its predecessors.
Even while reading the comparatively cheery Eagle, I wondered why these books were classified as children’s. The vocabulary and sentence structure can be quite advanced. The tone is bleak. The main characters are in their late teens or early twenties. Sutcliff assumes that her readers have a basic knowledge of Roman and British history—a fairly safe assumption at the time, but not in these dumb times—and she never talks down to the reader or hits them on the head with the moral of the story.
In Frontier Wolf, the violence, while still not gratuitous, is a lot more upsetting than that of Eagle or Silver Branch. (view spoiler)[This time the most tragic deaths are witnessed, and our hero, through no will of his own, has a hand in them (hide spoiler)].
Granted, the series so far is so sexless it makes the Chronicles of Narnia look like today’s hormone-marinated YA by comparison, but “lack of romance” does not automatically equal “kids’ book”, especially when the rest of the book would be a hard read for youngsters regardless.
This is a dark and sorrowful story, not dark for the sake of darkness like so many today (*cough* An Ember in the Ashes *cough*), but accurately reflecting a dark period in history, a time when Roman apathy and the anger of various “barbarians” would bring about the Empire’s end, taking antiquity itself with it, in about a hundred-and-fifty years.
It’s also the personal tragedy of a young man trapped between horrible choices, always wanting to do the right thing, and having to settle for doing as little damage as possible. I shed a few tears for Alexios.
The most searing installment yet in a series I’m so glad to have found. Recommended. ...more
Justin is an introverted, awkward young military surgeon. His family line, Aquila, has been connected to BritanThe Roman province of Britannia, 292 AD
Justin is an introverted, awkward young military surgeon. His family line, Aquila, has been connected to Britannia for two hundred years, but he has never set foot there till now. A Celtic leader named Curoi, called Carausius in Latin, has declared himself emperor of Britannia and the northern part of Gaul; he has gained temporary recognition from actual Emperor Maximian in honor of Carausius’ sea victories. (By now, the Roman Empire has become a Tetrarchy).
Justin is immediately befriended by a red-headed soldier named Flavius—who turns out to be his cousin, Marcellus Flavius Aquila, direct descendant of Marcus from The Eagle of the Ninth. Flavius is thrilled to meet a kinsman from the Continental branch of the family, and both lads live at the ancestral homestead Marcus and Cottia built when they’re not in the barracks.
One of those whom Justin heals in the infirmary is Evicatos, an exiled Hibernian (Irish) warrior. Cases like his demonstrate Justin’s skills as a doctor and bring him, and his inseparable cousin, to the notice of Carausius himself.
But when Justin and Flavius witness an apparent act of treachery by Carausius’ minister of finance, Allectus, the world as they know it is upended. It’s up to these two, their dignified great-aunt Honoria, Evicatos, a Hibernian jester, an idealistic Centurion, a fussy little man and the boy he rescued from slavery, a washed-up former gladiator, and a small group of elderly farmhands to restore order in Britannia…
Content Advisory Violence: The penultimate chapters are consumed by battle. Sutcliff largely bypasses literal gore in favor of Justin’s psychological state, which is rather intense and harrowing. After the battle, we see two characters die, one of whom was particularly lovable and heroic.
Two other characters, both older men whom the heroes look up to, are (separately) stabbed to death off-page. Justin is haunted by how he imagines these deaths, with knives glinting in the torchlight. A character who witnessed his adopted father figure die says that the man’s enemies “cut him down like a badger.”
Sex: Nothing. And this is a novel about the ancient Romans.
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: The characters generally opt for beer or wine rather than water, because the drinking water supply back then was a sanitation nightmare.
Politics and Religion: Anthoninus draws an ichthys on the hearth. He looks at Justin and Flavius, gets no reaction, and wipes the symbol away again.
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Nightmare Fuel: Justin is severely claustrophobic and has a number of near-panic attacks in small spaces.
Conclusions A solid look at a period of Roman and British history that I knew very little about. This book is less adventurous and more warlike than its predecessor, The Eagle of the Ninth, but its characters are just as lovable, its familial relationships and friendships are just as strong, its mysteries are just as alluring, and its inner sense of moral integrity cannot be argued with. I’m super excited to continue this series. ...more
In 117 AD/CE, the Ninth Legion of the Roman Army marched into the mists of Caledonia (the land known today as Scotland). They were never seen again.
ThIn 117 AD/CE, the Ninth Legion of the Roman Army marched into the mists of Caledonia (the land known today as Scotland). They were never seen again.
The standard-bearer of the Legio IX Hispana, who held aloft the golden eagle as they marched, was the father of our hero, Marcus Flavius Aquila. Marcus was a lad of twelve years when his father vanished. Now a young adult eager to prove his mettle, Marcus himself serves as a Roman officer in Britain.
He is discharged after a grievous battle wound that gives him a slight limp. While recuperating in the house of his uncle, Marcus has nothing but downtime in which to ponder the fate of his father and the standard he carried into the Caledonian mists.
He also forms three fast friendships. The first is with Esca, a young Briton whom Marcus purchased as a manservant-slave to save him from the gladiator fights. The second is with an orphaned wolf cub, named simply Cub, whom Esca adopted when on a hunting excursion that killed Cub’s mother. The third is with Cottia, a British girl being (unwillingly) raised as a Roman by the family next door.
When he has sufficiently recovered, Marcus, accompanied only by Esca, decides to go north, beyond the wall of Britannia, and follow the trail of the Ninth Legion into Celtic lands unknown. His intent: to bring back the Eagle, and restore the honor of his father’s Legion.
Content Advisory Violence: There’s a gladiator combat where men and beasts are slain, although Sutcliff spares us the worst of the gore. There’s also a battle sequence that focuses more on Marcus’ state of mind than the carnage around him. Another battle towards the end of the book has minimal bloodshed.
Sex: Marcus nicknames Cottia a "little vixen." This is a reference to her red hair and ferocity, but he probably also calls her that because he finds her rather, well...
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Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Everybody drinks wine and beer because the water back then was a sanitation hazard.
Nightmare Fuel: The Celtic Feast of New Spears features some rituals that could be rather frightening to younger kids, including men prancing about wearing dead animals (the emblems of their clans) on their heads. The being here called the Horned Hunter (also known as Cernunnos or Herne) has a strange presence in the book—the main characters don’t believe in him per se, but almost fear that he might spring on them as they go about their task—and he’s kind of spooky even though he never materializes.
Conclusions This is my first Sutcliff book, and my only complaint is that somehow I did not find out about this book’s existence until recently. Ah well. Better late than never.
What an outstanding novel. Nearly every aspect of it is perfect. The characters have such vibrancy and depth, especially Marcus and Esca.
Marcus, unlike most young Roman men in fiction, is a gracious and humble fellow who cares so deeply for the honor of his father and people, but thinks nothing of his own pride and even life.
Esca is quiet, observant, loyal, and deep. The way the lads develop over their journey is amazing, from master and servant to brothers in arms. They were able to transcend the prejudices of their respective cultures and have one of the strongest literary friendships I’ve ever seen.
These two are the main focus, but the supporting cast is wonderful too. Guern is particularly lovable, Tradui is intriguing, and Tribune Placidus is just one of those smarmy little pseudo-villains that one loves to hate.
Cottia reminds me a bit of Éowyn with her desperate desire for freedom, not to mention her penchant for standing in the wind with her bright hair billowing out from under her cloak. My only complaint with her is that she should have been in more of the story.
But Roman society in those days kept men and women apart most of the time. The only way, unfortunately, that Cottia or any other girl could have participated in an adventure like this one, is by disguising herself as a boy, which wouldn’t have worked in this case anyway because Marcus and Esca would have recognized her instantly.
Cub is a delight, the fiercest of all hunters yet the doggiest of dogs, who nearly starved himself to death when his master had to leave him behind, and greeted him with a flurry of tail-wagging and slobbery kisses when he finally came home.
The desolation and ferocity of Roman Britannia is the baseline of the story, and Sutcliff paints the environs richly with her well-chosen words. The only way to make the moors, the old forests, and the Lowlands even more forlorn than usual is to step back to this ancient era—before Heathcliff and Catherine, before Macbeth and the three witches, before even King Arthur rose from the ashes of Rome and Druidism. The few settlements are lonely little lights in the mist.
And as you can imagine, the people living in those settlements are rather nervous. Rome is far away, and reinforcements take a while to reach the lime-cliff shores of Britain. A fell sweep of northern Celtic tribes could push the Romans back into the sea. Even the gladiator fights, which were aggressively festive events in Rome itself, are portrayed here as being nearly as nerve-wracking for the viewers as for the combatants. Sutcliff masterfully evokes the tension and dread that the Roman colonists must have lived with on a daily basis. With all the Biblical fiction I’ve been reading lately, it’s interesting to see how the Western and Eastern frontiers of the Empire paralleled each other. The Celts and the Judeans had nothing culturally in common beyond their fierce independence, and both lands seethed against their overlords.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book. I’m hugely impressed with Sutcliff’s storytelling ability, and I can’t wait to read the adventures of Marcus and Cottia’s descendents.
P.S. A movie based on this book came out a few years ago, starring Channing Tatum as Marcus and Jamie Bell as Esca. It looks like a highly enjoyable film in its own right, and I could easily picture those two actors as the heroes of the story. However, I’m annoyed that the movie appears to have written Cottia and Cub out of the story entirely, and the subplot about Esca (view spoiler)[turning on Marcus and enslaving him (hide spoiler)] is even worse. That’s like Frodo turning on Sam in the Return of the King movie, only here it was deemed important enough to be shown in the trailer. I’m still curious to see it, but those elements worry me.
P.P.S. Apparently modern scholars are pretty divided about what became of the Ninth Legion. Some say that they never vanished at all, others that they went missing in Parthia during the bar Kokba revolt, at the opposite end of the Empire from Britain. Isn’t this the same legion that wound up in China in the Rick Riordan timeline? ...more
No One Hears But Him is a collection of twelve short stories connected by their setting and pattern. In an Everytown USA, there is a mysterious house No One Hears But Him is a collection of twelve short stories connected by their setting and pattern. In an Everytown USA, there is a mysterious house in the middle of a well-kept park. Inside the building, people go to pour out their problems to “The Man Who Listens.” Is he a psychiatrist? A psychic? A minister? No one knows. Those who visit him never speak of what they see there.
Each chapter in the book follows a different protagonist, struggling with a hot button issue of 1966 (the year the book was published) that often enough turns out to still be a hot button issue today. Police brutality and racism, patriotic dissent and government overreach, dying small towns and urban dysfunction, suicide and narcissism, affluenza and drug addiction—it’s all here, and while Caldwell’s own views (she seems quite Libertarian) often bleed through, she never loses her compassion for the characters as individuals.
I can’t say much more without giving away the identity of the Listener and the outcomes of the people’s problems. Suffice that you should definitely give this a try, especially if you like C.S. Lewis. ...more
Lloyd C. Douglas didn’t take up writing till he was fifty. That astounds me. This is as fine a novel as any produced by someone who had been scribblinLloyd C. Douglas didn’t take up writing till he was fifty. That astounds me. This is as fine a novel as any produced by someone who had been scribbling since childhood.
I hope most of us are familiar with the plot of The Robe, since it’s the basis for one of the most sweeping, epic films of Old Hollywood. Marcellus Gallio is a high-born, somewhat indolent Roman Tribune who gets shipped to the fractious province of Judaea, and is conscripted into helping execute a young Jewish man accused of treason and blasphemy. The soldiers gamble for the crucified man’s few possessions and Marcellus gets his robe—a remarkable garment, woven without seams. But when he touches it, a mysterious madness and a sickness comes upon him. The dead man was named Jesus of Nazareth.
Marcellus is joined on this venture by his loyal slave, a Greek named Demetrius, who is deeply touched by the Nazarene and desperate to learn all he can about him.
Meanwhile, Marcellus’ family and friends back in Rome struggle to stay in the favor of mad Emperor Tiberius and Gaius, Tiberius’ depraved heir apparent. (view spoiler)[(Unlike the film version, Caligula doesn’t show up until almost the end. The character in the movie is a combination of him and his uncle Gaius, which is a bit confusing since Caligula’s real name was also Gaius). (hide spoiler)]
Douglas’ writing is rich, especially his descriptions. People, buildings and landscapes all feel like you can reach through the pages and touch them. When he spoke of long treks through the desert and chaparral parts of Judea, my throat felt as parched as those of the men. When he checked on Marcellus’ fiancée, Diana, on Capri with the Emperor, I could feel the sea breeze and smell the salt. He also captures the moods of the two worlds his hero inhabits: the poverty and secrecy of the Jews and the nascent Christians forms a vivid contrast with the Romans, who are either noble but nihilistic, or debauched beyond description, or mad.
Most commendable is his ability to evoke the lead-poisoned, perverted world of the Roman aristocracy without overwhelming the reader with the vile decadence of it all. He gives us just enough detail to get by, only implying the more sordid rumors and practices. This does not in any way detract from the quality of the work. (Contrast the odious Cleopatra’s Moon, where every other word once the heroine reaches Rome is about pederasty. And that was marketed as YA). Nor does he wallow in gratuitous gore—the Crucifixion and the Stoning of St. Stephen have plenty of it built in, without an unnecessary plot detour to the gladiator fights.
Douglas also casts a good balance portraying good and evil. Like in real life, it is spread evenly among the Jews and Romans. A few unflattering stereotypes of both peoples are employed, while their virtues are lauded. Come down too heavily on one side and the work would seem either directly anti-Semitic or obliquely anti-Catholic (tainting the Romans beyond redemption can’t help but imply things about the Roman Church). Douglas deftly avoids both pitfalls. If anything, he’s a bit too kind to the Greeks.
I only have a few small complaints about this book, none of which merited knocking off a star. Like most books of its length, it does drag in the middle and perhaps a few sentences could have been sacrificed to make it flow better. It’s also annoying that the female characters (except Miriam) do not seem to understand the stakes of the conflict to the degree that the men do, but that, alas, must be expected of a book from this time, especially one written by a man.
As a Catholic, the Protestant undercurrent in the book sometimes annoyed me. The story of the weaver-woman who made Jesus’ Robe was touching, to be sure, but isn’t it just far more likely that His Mother made it? Justus even offers to introduce Marcellus to Mary at one point, but Marcellus says no. His reasoning is sound—she might remember his face from the execution and flee from the sight of him. But I wish that Douglas had gone there. Our Lady would have been the first to reach out to Marcellus.
(view spoiler)[Finally, and this is a complaint about the plot rather than the quality—I really shipped Demetrius with Lucia. I know he was a slave and she his owner’s sister, and such a romance would have been clandestine and difficult, but what’s a love-interest arc without a bit of star-crossing? (hide spoiler)]
The 1953 movie based on the book—starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature as Marcellus, Diana, and Demetrius—is smashingly good, but diverges from the book so often that I almost wish someone would remake this as a big-budget miniseries, with younger actors to match the ages of the characters, and catch all the intricacies of its cast and its plot. Or maybe split the book into two or three theatrical movies. If they managed to eke three movies out of The Hobbit, this has a lot more material already there and might actually work as a one-book duology or trilogy.
The Robe will enthrall any reader who gives it a chance. A Christian reader will find both their faith and their imagination invigorated by it, while a secular reader might gain a new perspective on the faith, in a sweeping historical novel with lively characters and deep, thorough world-building. People of any creed should be able to enjoy that. It’s appropriate for teens and adults. Highly recommended....more
Great Lion of God was in the same haul as The Robe and Dear and Glorious Physician—in the small but cherished book collection of my grandmother, who dGreat Lion of God was in the same haul as The Robe and Dear and Glorious Physician—in the small but cherished book collection of my grandmother, who died the year after I was born. Grandma might not have read many books, but quality is more important than quantity, and these three novels are some of the finest I’ve ever read.
Great Lion of God chronicles the life of Saul/Paul of Tarsus, that tempestuous man so vital to the spread of Christianity around the Roman world, and therefore a seminal figure in world history. Born to a somber Pharisee father and a materialistic Sadducee mother, Saul is fearsome even as a child. His mother is so shallow that she fails to bond with her little boy because she thinks him too ugly to be her offspring. Perhaps to irk her on a subliminal level that he does not yet grasp, Saul embraces the devoutness of his paternal family instead, but carries it to an extreme of religiosity that his father, mild-mannered Hillel, finds frightening.
This extremeness of Saul’s becomes a fixed part of his character after his crush on Dacyl, the neighbors’ Greek slave girl, goes sour. She asks him to have sex when they barely know each other, and being a horny boi he’s eager to oblige her. But immediately afterwards he has a panic attack, becoming disgusted and horrified by both his own raging hormones and the girl he found so desirable just a moment ago. From this point forward Saul nurses a deep misogyny, and a loathing for even the most innocuous expressions of affection between men and women. He even mistrusts his own little sister.
Shortly thereafter a plague sweeps through Tarsus, striking down Saul (who eventually recovers) and his mother, Deborah (who does not) among hundreds of others. The boy becomes even harder and angrier, and feels guilty for not bonding with his mother even though she was the one to reject him in early childhood.
In this dangerous frame of mind, Saul journeys to Jerusalem with his father to prepare for his sister’s wedding. Stomping about the city and hating everything he sees, he comes across what he first assumes are a brother and a sister, but turn out to be son and a mother who was very young indeed when She bore Him. These two are peasants from the lowly region of Galilee, yet somehow They have the poise of royalty and a magnetism that goes beyond even a crown. Saul believes the two to be sorcerers and flees from Them, reviling Them.
Saul hates nothing more than the decadent and oppressive Romans, and gleefully follows the exploits of the Zealots who carry out petty terror attacks against Roman soldiers here in Judaea. But he learns quickly that any Zealot victories are short-lived, and their ends unhappy…
In one of the most haunting scenes I’ve ever read, Saul witnesses a mass crucifixion on the walls of Jerusalem. The condemned are mere boys in their late teens and early twenties, just like Saul—and just like the Romans driving nails into their hands and feet. The brave rebels are coming to an inglorious end, for crucifixion is a death reserved for the most contemptible criminals. They strain to breathe, their pain too much for mortals to bear…
…and yet another young man emerges from the crowd, with the clothing of a redneck and the bearing of a king, and in a quiet but resonating and powerful voice He recites the Shema:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
The dying youths repeat this phrase after Him, and He walks down the line, reciting Psalms and they echo the sacred words. By the time He has walked from one end of the line to the other, the boys have died, mercifully and peacefully, their faces and bodies eased as if they merely fell asleep. And the young man in the rough clothing—whom it should surprise nobody is one Yeshua of Nazareth—pulls His cloak up over His head and slinks away from the crowd, hunched over as if He has absorbed the pain from the executed youths and taken it into His own Body.
From this day forward Saul’s life begins to change, and he will resist that change with every step but will be ultimately powerless against it.
There are plenty of authors still living whom I deeply admire, but I have yet to stumble upon any who write with the majesty of Taylor Caldwell. Her words bring the places she describes—in this case, the many cities of the ancient eastern Mediterranean coast—to such vibrant life that a movie version would almost be redundant. No physical detail of a person, animal, object or place escapes her notice, nor does the most fleeting thought, or movement of a person’s soul.
Her saturation of detail can make some parts of the book uncomfortable to read. CAVEAT EMPTOR: this is Christian fiction, but hardly the feel-good, G-rated stuff that usually gets sold under that name these days.
The mass crucifixion scene is horribly graphic—the boys, already bleeding profusely from their hands and feet, also have hundreds of small cuts on their backs from the splinters of their rough wooden crosses, which they have to rub against in order to breathe in this position, and some from pain and exhaustion soil themselves.
This also applies for the stoning of St. Stephen, a beautiful youth who by the end of his martyrdom barely appears human, bleeding so profusely from his head that his hair color and facial features can no longer be recognized.
Then there’s the sex scene with Saul and Dacyl, which is not explicit but rather graphic all the same, and Caldwell’s terminology rapidly veers from sensual to lurid and corrupt, so the reader experiences the same upheaval over the incident that Saul does. This is all brilliantly done, but renders the book highly inappropriate for Sunday school. Squeamish readers are duly advised.
But just as this book explores the pits of human experience, it shows us the highs, too—especially when the Divine intersects with the mundane. The visions of Saul are as searingly described as if Caldwell herself experienced them. The scenes with Jesus are infused with an eerie majesty. The many tempests of Saul’s inner life will draw you in and wring you out.
Like Dear and Glorious Physician, this book is an immersive and haunting experience that demands and deserves to be savored. Warmly recommended for adults and mature teens of any faith or none....more
This was one of my late grandmother’s books, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for not throwing it out or selling it when we moved Grandpa outThis was one of my late grandmother’s books, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for not throwing it out or selling it when we moved Grandpa out of that house. What a find!
Dear and Glorious Physician chronicles the life of St. Luke the Physician, starting when he is a ten-year-old child, a Greek slave in the Roman province of Syria. Despite his ostensibly lowly rank, Lucanus (as he is then called) grows up in a happy, stable environment with both of his biological parents. His master is a kind if austere man who allows the lad to be friends with his own sickly daughter, Rubria. That winter a great, bright star appears in the heavens overhead, which fascinates Lucanus, who was always somewhat otherworldly even as a child but becomes steadily more ethereal from that point forward.
Lucanus is in for a rough adolescence. He falls in puppy love with Rubria, but she succumbs to her sickness, grieving him deeply. He decides to train as a physician, and becomes locally renowned as a healer, but is unable to save Rubria’s mother from dying in childbirth (although he did save the infant, which was no small feat). His father, whom he never liked much, drowns not long after. Lucanus begins to feel that life is arbitrary and God is cruel. This hatred for the way things are is all that drives him.
He goes to Alexandria to further his medical training. Meanwhile his master, Diodorus, remarries—to Lucanus’ mother, Iris.
While in Egypt Lucanus meets another girl, a young Jewish aristocrat named Sara (whose name should be spelled with an H, by the way). The attraction between them—emotional, physical, and spiritual—is instant and powerful, but Lucanus is too angry with the world to allow himself to truly love Sara, or accept her belief in a loving God who watches over all. His mother and step-family have moved to Rome, and he joins them there.
Rome is both the crown jewel and the cesspit of the Western world at the moment. Nowhere else would you find more art, more education, more commerce—and nowhere else would you find such apathy, such madness, such depravity and such decay.
Lucanus is an established doctor by now, and the step-son of a loyal Roman soldier. With a solid reputation for himself and a good family background, he is sought as the personal physician to Emperor Tiberius. The young man is also a great athlete and very handsome—with the fair hair, blue eyes, and height so coveted by the Greco-Romans—and the wicked empress, Julia, wants to make him her next conquest. She gets him drunk at a party and almost has her way with him, but he evades her and flees the imperial city. Her favorites, having displeased her, tend to wind up dead.
Back in the Near East, Lucanus makes a travelling companion, a man from deep in Africa named Ramus who has come to seek the Messiah, and has sworn an oath of silence until he finds Him. For years these two friends wander the Mediterranean coast, Lucanus healing everyone who seeks him, his Nubian friend ever looking out for the One born beneath that Star all those years ago.
In Greece the two men suffer violence and Ramus is blinded, but when Lucanus weeps over the man his eyes are miraculously restored. Not long after, Ramus strikes off alone to seek the Messiah. He has heard rumors of a man named Yeshua in Judaea.
With all his Roman enemies dead, Lucanus returns to the Eternal City, where he meets again with his darling Sara, who is dying of tuberculosis (if memory serves). She wants to marry him, so her last years may be brightened by the man she loves and possibly a child. But Lucanus cannot make this jump, although he assures her that he loves her. He sails East again, and they exchange letters until her death. His step-brother has taken ill.
Lucanus finds that his step-brother got sick after participating in the crucifixion of one Jesus of Nazareth, a young Jew executed for supposedly fomenting rebellion. He heals his brother, but both men are convinced that the illness was supernatural in origin and journey across the small country in search of more information about Jesus. The more they hear, the more assured they become of the man’s divinity, and soon both are welcomed among His followers.
The book ends with Lucanus, alone this time, interviewing the Virgin Mary about her Son, in the first of many sessions that will eventually be written down as the Gospel of Luke.
Caldwell’s gift for description is beyond compare. As much as I wish for an intelligent film or television adaptation of this magnificent tome, it would almost be redundant. Such is her way of setting a scene that you can already see, hear, smell, and touch it. Not the smallest flower in the garden, not the most distant birdsong, not the briefest gleam of sunset against a sea wave escapes her. Her research—reportedly including thousands of books—is clear, and her reputed mystical experiences would also explain a lot.
The characters emerge as real, too: Luke, Sara, Diodorus, Iris, Keptah, and Ramus escapes me especially. Even those who seem a bit too pretty and perfect at first—such as our hero, whose golden hair, sapphire eyes, and perfect features never go unremarked upon—have vivid personalities and intricate internal monologues. Luke’s arc is long and agonizing, and one wishes at first for a happier ending, but the more time I’ve had to process the story, I think it’s ending is perfect.
There are too many brilliant scenes to list them all. Some of the best were the sickening slave market scene sequence in Antioch, Julia’s orgy in Rome—where Caldwell so well describes Lucanus’ drunken stupor that my own vision started to blur, and the last quiet tableaux, where Luke is both awed by Mary and reminded of his own mother.
Content Advisory
Please note: just because this is Christian fiction doesn’t mean it’s squeaky clean.
Violence: lots of off-page, unseen, murders and rapes. Those Romans were sick.
Gore: There are a handful of graphic medical scenes, including one where a woman dies in childbirth. Very hard to read.
Sex: A teenaged Lucanus is molested by slave traders, who remark on his beauty and tell him that some pederast or cougar back in Rome would pay a great deal for him. He seeks refuge in a temple and escapes this fate. Later on, a gay soldier makes a mild pass at him and gets rebuffed.
Julia shows up to her party in a hypersexed parody of a Minoan priestess’ garb, complete with exposed nipples. She and her ladies lean suggestively on Lucanus and every other man they can find, and they spread a rumor about a rival lady experimenting with bisexuality. The slaves at this party are forced to serve the guests nude, and later others are made to don satyr and nymph outfits and perform a foul mythological burlesque, portraying a mass rape. A plastered Lucanus wakes up to the rapacious older woman straddling him and kissing him all over. Disgusted, he shoves her back onto her lounging attendants and flees the scene. Date rape, aided with alcohol. It happens to men too.
Given that this is the classical world, we also see some nudity in non-sexual contexts. Lucanus meets two of Julia’s other boy-toys practicing wrestling in the buff, and proceeds to embarrass them both with his sweet kung-fu skills. (This really happened. Supposedly he was trained by a travelling monk from Cathay whom he met in Alexandria).
Napoleon Dynamite approves: [image]
As previously stated, nothing sexual about this scene, but it’s a little awkward that they’re just hanging out doing martial arts in their birthday suits.
Language: Nothing to worry about.
Substance Abuse: That one time Lucanus gets hammered is about it, but it’s written so vividly that I felt drunk just reading it.
Anything Else: Some will feel uncomfortable that a few of the stories about Jesus at the end of the book are not sourced in the Gospel. Caldwell drew on the visions of Catholic saints and medieval legends for extra material.
Then there is the very awkward subplot involving a black man seeking Jesus because he wants the "curse of Ham" lifted. Oh dear. Remember it was written in 1958.
All in all, an outstanding book for adults and older teens of any or no faith. Like all the best historical fiction, it draws you back into its era and breathes life into people long dead, and places long since fallen into ruin. It may also give you a different perspective on God, and the problem of death. An underrated classic; highly recommended....more
Books like The Perilous Gard remind me of why I love to read.
Our story begins in England, summer of 1558, in an unpleasant castle where Princess ElizaBooks like The Perilous Gard remind me of why I love to read.
Our story begins in England, summer of 1558, in an unpleasant castle where Princess Elizabeth Tudor keeps a small retinue, ever watched and harassed by her angry half-sister, Queen Mary. I knew right away that I was in good hands because Elizabeth Marie Pope conveys deftly that Mary bullied Elizabeth without making the older royal out to be a one-dimensional monster.
One of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, a stupid beauty named Alicia Sutton, writes an angry letter to Queen Mary complaining of the conditions at Hatfield. Mary is infuriated by the letter, but believes Alicia too sweet and witless a creature to have composed it herself, so the royal punishment falls instead on the head of Katherine, Alicia’s plain-looking and plain-spoken older sister.
Princess Elizabeth has no choice but to send her friend Katherine to the place “suggested” by the Queen: Sir Geoffrey Heron’s desolate manor, Elvenwood Hall, sometimes called the Perilous Gard. Elizabeth promises to retrieve Katherine as soon as she has the power, but that doesn’t seem likely in the foreseeable future…
Kate soon discovers a number of things awry at the house in the spooky Elvenwood. Her host, Sir Geoffrey, is the picture of chivalry to her, but won’t even acknowledge his younger brother, the troubled and handsome Christopher. Sir Geoffrey’s little daughter is missing or dead, and everyone has a different story regarding what became of her. Master John, the steward of the house, is keeping secrets from the household he serves. The poor folk in the nearby village live in a constant state of servile dread, and it is not the family of the castle that frightens them. And rumors swirl of a malevolent race, human-like but not human, who live in a labyrinth below the ancient town well and are responsible for all manner of dark deeds in the neighborhood…
Pope’s writing is meticulous, and this novel does not leave a single thread of its tapestry dangling. Every detail becomes important by the end.
The world-building is so thorough that you might feel a wave of homesickness for the Gard once you put the book down.
The characters, particularly Kate and Christopher, are lovable and flawed and full of life. (view spoiler)[Pope creates a great deal of tension between those two, even though there’s a notable lack of sensual description. They don’t kiss until the very last page—and even then, it’s implied—but the dialogues between them sparkle, with the true meanings of their words concealed. They are now one of my OTPs and I’m only sorry I didn’t meet them earlier. (hide spoiler)]
The themes of the story are rich, and I didn’t expect many of them going in. (view spoiler)[There are questions here about paganism versus Christianity in British history, and whether or not magic can real or smoke and mirrors. (hide spoiler)] All this is built into an enthralling historical fantasy that surges to a perfect climax and a eucatastrophic ending.
In short, if you loved any of the following:
The ballad of Tam Lin Cupid and Psyche Yeats’ "Stolen Child" The Witch of Blackbird Pond The Silver Chair The Dark is Rising series Labyrinth The Queen’s Thief series Crown Duel and Court Duel Wildwood Dancing or Shadowfell The Spiderwick Chronicles
Elizabeth George Speare mostly stuck to colonial New England in her novels - Calico Captive, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Sign of the Beaver - butElizabeth George Speare mostly stuck to colonial New England in her novels - Calico Captive, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Sign of the Beaver - but in The Bronze Bow, she pulls the reader all the way back first-century Judaea, a place not that different from pre-Revolutionary Boston. Both places were a battleground between imperial soldiers who would rather been anywhere else, and local angry, disenfranchised young men endlessly seeking a punching bag.
Our eighteen-year-old protagonist, Daniel the Zealot, has spent the last four years on a mountaintop with his fellow outlaws. He imagines that he and his friends will be anointed by God and miraculously drive the Romans out any day now. In this gang, every man looks out for number one, but fate will soon throw people into Daniel's awareness and force him to care. They are:
- Joel, a childhood acquaintance who shares Daniel's thirst for freedom but not his bloodlust
- Malthace, called Thacia by her friends, Joel's beautiful and kind twin sister
- Samson, a deaf-mute foreigner rescued from a slave caravan who appoints himself Daniel's bodyguard after the later does a good deed for him
- Leah, Daniel's traumatized younger sister who hasn't left the family hovel in nine years
- Marcus, a young Gallic Roman soldier who seems to enjoy lording it over Daniel, and
-Jesus, an itinerant preacher of unclear political allegiance, Who says the strangest things and forces Daniel to examine himself.
A pebble rolls down the mountainside, and then another, and another...in three hundred years the avalanche will bury Rome itself.
Content Advisory Violence: Slaughter is a fact of life in this setting. Rosh and his followers think nothing of killing the merchants who pass through their territory. Later, a skirmish results in the deaths of two freedom fighters and a handful of Romans. Daniel mugs a murderous old man but decided not to kill him.
(view spoiler)[Years before the story begins, Daniel's uncle angered the local Romans, setting off a chain reaction that ended with six men, including the uncle and Daniel and Leah's father, being crucified. The children's mother kept vigil with her dead husband, sickened, and died in a few weeks. Leah, who at the time was five years old, saw her daddy hanging on a cross, and has since hidden in the house. The villagers think she's possessed, although she acts nothing like a demoniac. Today she might be diagnosed with PTSD. (hide spoiler)]
Sex: Daniel thinks Marcus is staking out his house to spy on Daniel and his seditious buddies....it never occurs to him that (view spoiler)[Marcus has a thing for Leah, even though he actually saw the Roman youth checking her out on one occasion. Our hero proceeds to change the location of his secret Zealot meetings and notices that Marcus has not followed. Well done, Dan. Your sister has never spoken to a man outside the family, is literally afraid of her own shadow, and you left her alone with a horny Roman soldier - one from France, no less. The biggest miracle in the book is that Marcus is actually a nice boy who respects Leah's boundaries. (hide spoiler)]
Language: Nothing.
Substance Abuse: Lots of wine-drinking but no drunkenness.
Politics and Religion: The book definitely believes in Jesus as Savior and Lord, but it's not out to proselytize. Non-Christians can probably still enjoy it as a literary work.
Conclusion The Bronze Bow is a vivid glimpse of the ancient world, chronicling a fiery young man's journey from vengeance to compassion. Vintage YA and Biblical fiction at its finest. Heartily recommended....more
As the granddaughter of a wealthy plantation owner, Katherine “Kit” Tyler was considered a person of importance Wethersfield, Connecticut Colony, 1687
As the granddaughter of a wealthy plantation owner, Katherine “Kit” Tyler was considered a person of importance in her childhood home on Barbados. Now that Grandfather is dead, Kit has pleaded with her Aunt Rachel in Connecticut to take her in.
Aunt Rachel gladly opens her home to Kit, but Rachel’s husband, Puritan elder Matthew Wood, is less enthused. Kit is very much a part of the mainstream Anglican culture of the day—she’s a fan of playacting and colorful clothing. Matthew is worried that his niece will be a bad influence on his teenage daughters, and that she might draw negative attention to his household.
Matthew’s fears of public disapproval are not entirely baseless. Wethersfield is peopled with paranoid gossips. Like all New England residents in the seventeenth century, they must constantly strive against the elements for survival and have almost no leisure time. But as Puritans particularly, they have left themselves almost no amusements save fomenting mistrust of any neighbor who’s even a bit unusual.
Kit is sheltered and spoiled, but naturally kind and brave. She tries admirably to adapt to her new home. But on a particularly trying day, she meets elderly Hannah Tupper, a Quaker widow cast out of the community. Hannah’s house becomes a hideout for local misfits, including Kit, abused little Prudence Cruff, and handsome Nat Eaton from the neighboring settlement.
A foul wind is starting to blow through New England…
Politics & Religion: Kit has an alarmingly cavalier attitude about the African slave trade, which surfaces once or twice. Nat disagrees with her rather vehemently on the subject, and it’s implied that he may be able to change her mind in the future.
The people of Wethersfield have ostracized Hannah because she’s a Quaker. She is not a witch in any sense of the word, and nor is anyone else in the book. At Kit’s trial, common accusations against alleged witches are tossed about, including that she was seen conversing with the Devil.
Conclusions The Witch of Blackbird Pond has been a favorite of mine since I was about eleven.
While often used in social studies classes to reinforce lessons on the Salem Witch Trials, the book itself is set in a different colony, a few years before the Salem hysteria began, and its accusers are not that notorious group of girls. It’s a precursor to those events, but on a smaller scale, and luckily ends with Hannah, Nat, Kit and Prudence all alive and well. But while the sword does not fall on the main characters, Speare does a fine job establishing a tension in the novel’s atmosphere that lingers even after they’re vindicated. These individuals were spared, but others will not be so lucky.
There’s also a lot of subtle foreshadowing of the American Revolution in the dialogue of Uncle Matthew and some of the other town council members. They bristle against the high-handed behavior of the King toward the colonists, and they predict that this discontent will eventually turn bloody, although they are not sure they’ll be alive to see it happen. The event they foresaw finally arrived ninety years later, and while they were long-dead, one can imagine that their descendants were at the head of it. You can tell that Speare took great pride in her fiery New England ancestors.
A big part of this book’s enduring appeal is how relatable its heroine is. Poor Kit. She’s impulsive and rather spoiled, but always means well, and strives not to make waves except when she needs to. She is misunderstood by most and reviled by many. The only people who understand her are an elderly person, a child, and an attractive male peer who doesn’t fit neatly in the Puritan youth box either. Kit learns that the quantity of friends one has means nothing, but the quality of those friends means everything.
Speare is also quite adept at conveying a lot of interpersonal drama with a large cast, in a comparatively short book, without making it seem crammed. Like The Bronze Bow, there’s a lot of young characters here struggling to balance their ideals with families and courtships. It adds a great deal of human interest to the story without ever tipping over into soap opera territory. I cared about how the little dance between Kit and Nat, Judith and William, and Mercy and John would resolve itself—because they were all likeable enough, they all had lives outside of their romantic travails, and the book’s main focus was elsewhere.
I wish more authors these days remembered how to do this…I love a good romance, but it seems like every book these days forgets its real object as it ruminates upon the raging hormones of its characters. Who cares about saving the world when we have love triangles to solve? It’s like the authors are writing their own fanfiction. The attitude of Blackbird Pond, among other YA offerings from this earlier era (The Sherwood Ring, The Perilous Gard, The Bronze Bow, Johnny Tremain, etc.) was that your relationship angst would take care of itself if you prioritized it behind more pressing matters, such as defending the defenseless and protecting one’s homeland.
This book has moments of bleakness and dread, balanced with cozy hearthside family scenes that still acknowledge the darkness outside. It saturates you in the world of the characters, riddled with ignorance and fear but shot through with hope, courage, and the serenity that comes from doing the right thing. Worth reading no matter your age. ...more
Seventeen-year-old Peggy Grahame is sent to live with her only living relative, cold Uncle Enos. The ancestral upstate New York mansion, Rest-and-be-tSeventeen-year-old Peggy Grahame is sent to live with her only living relative, cold Uncle Enos. The ancestral upstate New York mansion, Rest-and-be-thankful, has barely been altered since its eighteenth-century heyday, and Enos himself is likewise stuck in the past, when his forebearers were heroes of the Continental Army.
Enos has no time for Peggy, but the lonely girl does make some friends. One is a dashing English lad named Pat, who is determined to woo Peggy despite her uncle's mysterious grudge against him. The others are ghosts from the Revolution: Richard Grahame, a brave and arrogant Patriot colonel; Eleanor Shipley, Richard's feisty sweetheart; Barbara Grahame, Richard's clever and sarcastic sister; and the misnamed Peaceable Drummond Sherwood, a charming Redcoat outlaw and nemesis to both Grahame siblings (for entirely different reasons).
The ghosts are not damned souls. Nor are they unhealthily attached to the old house. So why are they here, and what do they want with Peggy?
This is one of, if not the, most delightful books I've read so far this year. The plot is a winning mix, half a paranormal mystery, half a historical romance with a generous dollop of swashbuckling. The characters are so vivid I could almost see and hear them. The pairings were perfect . And the writing is so smooth and graceful that forty-page-long chapters sped by like the two-page staves of a James Patterson thriller.
Also, this is the first book I've read in ever so long that doesn't need a content advisory. It's a war story that contains only one violent incident (a minor character gets a face full of broken glass, but will heal) and no deaths. It's a YA romance with no sensuality, innuendo, or even kissing. Yet the war part is still exciting, and Sherwood and Barbara could start a forest fire in Washington State just by making eye contact.