Isabel: Jewel of Castilla by Carolyn Meyer

(Cover picture courtesy of The Flying Librarian’s Hideout.)

Segovia—12th of April 1466

After Mass this morning, I climbed the narrow, winding stone steps to a window high in one of the castle turrets.  I often come up here to see what lies beyond my prison.  Segovia is surrounded by four thick walls, each with a heavy wooden gate.  The aqueduct built by the Romans more than a thousand years ago stretches to the horizon.

Far below the castle, the Eresma River rushes through a narrow gorge.  Across the river, flocks of sheep seem to flow like a river themselves.  The sheep bleat, their bells tinkle—I know this, even if I cannot hear them.  In the fields beyond the walls, little green shoots of wheat are pushing up.  How I yearn to be there instead of here.

Queen Isabel of Spain was both a woman to be admired and a woman to be hated.  On one hand, she was an incredibly strong female leader for her time who actually chose who she got to marry.  On the other hand, she was the very woman that started the horrible, bloody Inquisition that killed thousands of innocents and forced thousands more to flee their homes.  Here in Isabel: Jewel of Castilla, Carolyn Meyer has attempted to explain both her strong side as well as her ruthless side that came from a combination of her deep faith and her hellfire-and-brimstone-preaching confessor, who later runs the Inquisition.  She certainly succeeds in creating an interesting explanation for Isabel’s brutality in her later life.

Since the story is told from Isabel when she is young, readers aged 10-12 will be able to enjoy this book.  It talks of her impending marriage and the civil war currently going on, but never actually touches on much sexuality or violence.  I wouldn’t call this a fast-paced novel, but at least it is an interesting one.  The dynamics between the characters (Isabel and her brother or Isabel and Queen Juana) are definitely realistic and very believable since the book is supposed to be Isabel writing her innermost thoughts about the people in her lonely life.

I never really knew much about Medieval Spain until I read this novel and I can assure you, I learned quite a lot.  Isabel certainly was a complicated woman, but Carolyn Meyer has made her much more accessible to modern readers.  Anyone who reads this will be entertained and learn a lot of history at the same time.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

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Still Alive

As you may or may not know, here in Saskatchewan we’ve had some wicked weather (including tornadoes) that knocked out a lot of main transformers and power lines.  In my area, the power (and water!) was out for 31 hours and the internet was out for 55 hours.  That’s why I haven’t been posting.  So thank you for still following my blog despite the completely random non-posting.  I love you guys.

Decoding Book Reviews

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS LANGUAGE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS.  READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Book reviewers, myself included, often use the same old phrases/clichés to describe books.  But what do we really mean when we use them?  Here’s a look at decoding book reviews and the people writing them.  (Note that these are just generalizations intended for comedic purposes.  The styles of individual book reviewers vary.)

Phrase #1: “This book is amazing!”

Interpretation: I do not own a thesaurus and I’m on a deadline.

Phrase #2: “A literary masterpiece…”

Interpretation: This is a book that will make you look smart and sound smart when you talk about it but will bore the hell out of you and anyone unfortunate enough to listen to you talk about it. Continue reading →

Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn

(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

It starts in prehistory.  A young man and a young woman fight over a precious jewel.  Their time together is short, but the reverberations are lasting.

Years pass.  Generations pass.  Centuries pass.  But fate keeps drawing them together.  Whenever their paths cross, there is that strong attraction.  That unexplainable affinity.  That feeling that they’ve been together before.

Theirs is a love haunted by history.  From Egyptian slavery to Greek society.  From Massachusetts witch trials to Civil War battlefields.  From Paris in the 1930s to the present day.  Circumstances will fight them…but a greater force will reunite them.  Because some people are meant for each other—no matter how long it takes.

This is not a book you read for historical accuracy, fast pacing or an unpredictable plot.  This is a book you read for guilty pleasure.  And as long as you keep that in mind, you’ll enjoy Reincarnation.

Suzanne Weyn’s novel is by no means historically accurate.  For example, when they are in ancient Egypt—she a singer named Tetisherti and he a Nubian slave called Taharaq—it made me snort aloud when he called Thebes ‘Luxor’, claiming that was its ancient Egyptian name.  Bull crap.  Thebes was called Weset.  And the idea that Taharaq saw the pyramids when he was coming up from Nubia to Weset is enough to make an Egyptologist cry.  And for reasons unknown, Suzanne Weyn calls Abu Simbel ‘Abu Simpel’ and Sekhmet ‘Sempkhet’.  I have never, ever seen those names translated in such a way (even in the Wikipedia articles I’ve linked to).  Utter nonsense.  But again, this is not meant to be historically accurate.

One thing that actually made me enjoy Reincarnation was the characterization.  All of the different reincarnations are three dimensional and sympathetic.  The attraction between them was very real and the romance actually didn’t feel forced.  There were certain traits that stayed with the characters in all of their lifetimes, but their circumstances in those different lifetimes were very different.

The plot is predictable, no doubt.  Come on, you know how stories like this are going to end.  However, because of the nice writing style and interesting characters, I actually enjoyed Reincarnation as a sort of guilty pleasure.  It’s never going to win any literary awards (nor should it) but as long as you take it as what it is—light reading—you’ll enjoy it.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

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Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor by Kathryn Lasky

(Cover picture courtesy of Longitude.)

November 10, 1544

I have been living with this constant fear of exile now for two days.  So far I have heard nothing.  Plans seem to proceed as normal for our move to Ashridge.  This palace, too, is becoming quite filthy, what with all the banqueting and people and gambling between Michaelmas Feast and the feast of All Saints’ Day.  The roses bloom in our garden with such vigor, but the stench from the courtyard over the wall outside the kitchen is unbearable.

Kat is mumbling something about baths again.  The woman is becoming a fanatic.  I think we have had half a dozen baths since summer…

Queen Elizabeth I.  Pretty much everyone knows she was a good queen and some people know what she accomplished during her reign (like outlawing wife-beating after 10:00pm, according to one of my Bathroom Readers), but not many really know much about her childhood and teenage years.  In this installment of the Royal Diaries, Kathryn Lasky presents a Rated G version of Elizabeth’s teenage years for people ages 10-12.

This book really contains no new information for me, but readers who have yet to discover the wonders of historical fiction will love it.  Elizabeth is a good main character and a very interesting narrator as she is strong even when she is betrayed and mistreated by her own father, King Henry VIII.  We really see the woman she will become later on as she learns skills that were unusual for women of the time, like archery, falconry and languages like Greek and Latin.  And we also see how she yearns for her father’s acknowledgement of her, how she treasures every smile or every bit of encouragement he gives her.

The plot isn’t what I would normally call fast-paced, but it is interesting enough.  Young readers will sympathize with Elizabeth while learning a great deal about Tudor England.  Really, what more could you ask for in historical fiction?

I give this book 3.5/5 stars.

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