A well-told story with all of the requisite narrow escapes and memorable characters.
Early in the 17th century, a group of conversos in Portugal attempts a dangerous escape to northern Europe, pursued by a murderous priest.
This historical novel examines the Inquisition, still smoldering and flaring up frequently in Portugal. Many Jews have converted to Christianity (they are conversos, aka “New Christians”), but are they really sincere converts, genuine Roman Catholics? One who obsesses about this is a priest in Abrantes, Padre Alvaro. The inquisitors are coming, so the New Christians are quietly slipping out of their ghetto and heading to the Protestant north and a more tolerant society. Among these are Isabela de Castro Nuñez, a teenager whose mother has died of the plague and whose father anxiously awaits her in Hamburg, Germany; and David de Sousa and his two sisters. They are aided by other conversos and sympathetic Christians who operate a kind of underground railroad up through France to the Low Countries. Some real heroes are Ana Martel Gerondi and her lover, Eduardo Carel. Then there is the Leon family, Simone and her brother, Enrique, and his son, Diego, who all risk their lives shepherding these hapless escapees. Ana, a healer, is in double jeopardy because a woman who deals in potions may well be a witch, and witches are fair game. After several close calls and kidnappings, the courageous allies try to turn the tables on Alvaro. Stark-Nemon, a published writer, handles things expertly, offering strong characters. The book is also well researched. One historically accurate theme is embroidery, Isabela’s specialty (“The embroidery on the finished glove was complex and skillfully stitched….Anchoring the outer corner of the gauntlet, a blossom of pomegranate was stitched in rich red, its contours outlined in gold thread studded with pearls”). Not only is Isabela very accomplished with the needle, but in the Jewish underground, embroidery motifs (hearts, certain flowers, birds) and colors constituted a secret code, announcing safety or danger, friend or foe. That is Isabela’s job during the trek, no small contribution. This novel revisitsan old story, but like most familiar tales, it bears repeating. Intolerance will always be with humanity, but so will heroes willing to fight that scourge, even to risk their lives.
A well-told story with all of the requisite narrow escapes and memorable characters.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781647429645
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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