Tagged: courtesans
The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M. J. Rose
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Possession. Power. Passion. New York Times bestselling novelist M. J. Rose creates her most provocative and magical spellbinder yet in this gothic novel set against the lavish spectacle of 1890s Belle Époque Paris.
Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother’s Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it’s dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine’s deepest desires.
Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten—her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She’s become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse.
This is Sandrine’s “wild night of the soul,” her odyssey in the magnificent city of Paris, of art, love, and witchery.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook as part of the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
A while back in May 2014 I was on the blog tour for M. J. Rose’s book The Collector of Dying Breaths and I absolutely loved it. The characters were fantastic, the writing was so beautiful it was hard to describe and the plot twisted and turned so much that I just had to keep reading. Needless to say I had high expectations for this stand-alone novel The Witch of Painted Sorrows.
My high expectations were absolutely exceeded and this book is one of the rare cases where the cover is just as good as the actual content. It gives away the atmosphere of the novel just wonderfully: beautiful but haunting. It’s so rare that an author can keep that atmosphere up throughout the novel even if it’s only in the background during some scenes but M. J. Rose certainly managed to do that. Throughout Sandrine’s journey we experience her hopes, her joys and her sorrows as her life in Paris goes from fairly regular to extraordinary. I’m not generally a fan of Gothic novels in part because few authors can keep up the haunted atmosphere but Rose definitely did. Through her beautifully descriptive writing I experienced everything from the bustling streets of Paris to the hidden corners of an ancient and seemingly cursed house. I know I keep using the word beautiful to describe her writing, but there really is no other word that does it justice. She’s able to evoke complex emotions in the simplest of phrases, to appeal to all your senses at once, particularly smell. I can honestly say that I’ve never had an author describe things so vividly before.
Sandrine is a wonderful main character. At first she’s a lonely woman escaping a loveless marriage and the knowledge that her father’s death was the fault of her hated husband. She’s lived a life of immense privilege but has never really known happiness until she comes to Paris to reconnect with her grandmother, a famous courtesan. When she meets her grandmother’s architect Julien and discovers that her grandmother intends to turn the Maison de la Lune into a mere tourist attraction, things start to get weird. First she discovers that she’s actually attracted to Julien and possibly even loves him, something she’s never experienced before in her entire life. Second, her grandmother starts acting weird when she learns that Sandrine is spending her time at La Lune’s house and tries to nip her growing attraction to Julien in the bud. Then, when Sandrine discovers the secret room in the maison, the tension starts to ratchet up in ever increasing notches. Throughout the novel Sandrine really grows as a character but when she discovers the secret of La Lune she really comes into her own, bucking society’s expectations of her spectacularly and asserting her independence. But there’s of course a more sinister reason behind Sandrine’s personality change that starts to spiral out of control as Sandrine spends more and more time in the secret room with La Lune’s paintings.
Simply put, The Witch of Painted Sorrows is a book you’ll never really be able to put down until you finish it. Not only does M. J. Rose know how to keep up the Gothic novel atmosphere, she also knows how to slowly introduce tension and gradually increase it until you’re unable to put the book down. You’ll think to yourself: “one more chapter, just one more” and then it’ll be three in the morning and you’re just finishing the book twenty chapters later. It’s incredibly hard to put down not only because her pacing is good and the suspense is constant but because the plot twists and turns quite spectacularly. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen in the end, Rose puts another twist in the plot. By the last few chapters I was fairly certain what the ending was going to be but the rest of the book was fairly unpredictable and I have to give her credit for that.
Basically, this novel will suck you in and not let you go until you’ve finished. You’ll be drawn in by the suspense and the beautiful writing but it’s the fantastic and dynamic characters that will keep you reading on into the early morning hours. It’s hard not to fall in love with a novel like this, that’s for sure. And that’s also why I can’t recommend this book highly enough: if the blurb has in any way intrigued you, go and buy the book on March 17 of this year. You won’t regret it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Courtesan’s Lover by Gabrielle Kimm
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Francesca Felizzi knows she wields an immense power over men. Her patrons see only a carefree courtesan, and they pay handsomely for the privilege of her time. Francesca never saw him coming, the man who cracked her heart open and ruined her for the job. But he’s shown her what a gaudy facade she’s built, and she doesn’t know how to tear it down without taking her beloved daughters with her. The wrong move could plunge all of them into the sort of danger she has dreaded ever since she began her perilous work all those years ago.
An exquisite tale that explores the intricate nature of a mother’s heart. The Courtesan’s Lover draws you close and whispers in your ear. In the tradition of Sarah Dunant and Marina Fiorato, a compelling and vibrant tale from an up-and-coming fresh voice that readers will want to savor.
I’ll be honest with you guys: the only reason I bought this book was because it was on sale at 3 books for $10 and I needed a third book to get the discount. The cover of my edition was hideous and the blurb sounded somewhat interesting but pretty stereotypical. That’s why I didn’t really pick up the book until I was on my holidays around Christmas. And lo and behold, Gabrielle Kimm surprised me.
Francesca is a main character that you can’t help but love. She plays the carefree courtesan well and interacts on a more personal level with all of her clients but on the inside you can tell she wants something more out of life. Even if she doesn’t know it in the beginning, Francesca always wanted a better life for herself and for her daughters in particular. When she suddenly falls in love with the upstanding father of a young client things suddenly spiral out of control and she realizes just how empty a life she was living before. In Luca, she suddenly sees everything that her life could be and despite the fact she’ll have to live modestly without her courtesan’s income, Francesca is determined to make a new life for herself. It’s actually a rather touching journey and of course not everything goes according to plan for our main character.
Francesca is very well fleshed out and she’s definitely the main character but Gabrielle Kimm also lets us see things from the eyes of the other characters, most notably Luca and Modesto. Luca is a kind of upstanding old patrician who thinks Francesca is a pure and innocent widow; at the same time he has a lot of depth and can be very progressive for a man of the time. Modesto (in my opinion) is far more fascinating. He’s a gifted singer, which meant in 16th century Napoli that he had been castrated before puberty so that he would always have a pure, high voice with the power of a full grown man’s lungs. He’s nominally Francesca’s servant but he acts as both a pimp and a caregiver. It’s his war with his feelings for Francesca with the reality of his situation (particularly the fact that she loves Luca) that makes him almost as fascinating as Francesca herself. Yes, I’m sort of a sucker for tragic figures.
This is not a fast-paced book, even by historical fiction standards. It’s very interesting, especially because Kimm seems to know her way around 16th century Napoli so well. There are just little details from everyday life that make the whole book far more interesting and make the characters and their world come alive. The whole time I read The Courtesan’s Lover I felt like I was in Napoli along with Francesca, Modesto and Luca. And considering the fact that I knew almost nothing about the time period coming into the novel, that’s no mean feat. So while the book is not fast-paced it is a thoroughly enjoyable read because the plot itself is interesting.
I wouldn’t say that the plot is unpredictable but it does have the occasional surprise. Some wrenches get thrown into the works but I think it’s pretty easy to predict the ending of this book. But you know what? Sometimes you just need a guilty pleasure read, one that will suck you into a whole new world and make you fall in love with its characters even if you can predict what’s going to happen at the end. Even though I didn’t know it at the time, that’s exactly what I needed so I’m very glad that I picked up The Courtesan’s Lover by chance. If the blurb intrigues you and you get a chance to buy the book, go ahead. We all need a little more lighthearted romance in our lives sometimes.
I give this book 4/5 stars.