The Turn of Midnight
My review -
| The book follows directly from The Last Hours and both cover the time around and immediately after the Black Death strikes England. The devastation of the country is so well portrayed here and the arrogance of the ruling Norman classes and the church. This leads the serfs to assume they themselves are responsible for the deaths. They are God’s judgement for sin. Lady Anne is motivated by science, in the sense that she knows the plague is a contagion and that it can be defeated by isolation. She also points out that innocent children died so casts doubt that it was punishment. This brings her into conflict with those clerics left alive. She is portrayed as a very charismatic figure, especially in comparison to others of the ruling class. The writing puts us into the medieval mindset and brings the despair and devastation alive for the reader. The serf-born Thaddeus Thurkell is still, to me, an enigmatic figure and I long for another book to explain his origins. The Turn of Midnight is a fantastic read and I was glued to it. Thanks to Netgalley for an advance review copy. |
No comments:
Post a Comment