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Year of Wonders

a Novel of the Plague
Jan 03, 2020ranXerox rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
I liked the book, but the last third seemed far too full of twists and turns and took the story away from a woman's contemplation and reflection on death, religion and duty to something that comes much too close to a romance novel. A Goodreads review of the Mistress of Death by Ariana Franklin reminds me of the other problem I had with this book and other recent entries in the genre; the heroine invariably looks a lot like a liberated woman with very modern and very liberal values. I'm sorry to say that this seems rather endemic to recent female historical fiction writers (The Golden Mean, Sweet Girl, Mistress, etc). That's why I LOVE Hilary Mantel. (and you should too!) She lets her characters be of their time. I'm less disturbed by the marketing necessity of a "modern woman" than I am about packing the book full of exploits in the last third of it - "and then... and then... and then..." - which really upends the slow and thoughtfully paced interiority of the first sections. It's a pleasant enough read and very well researched, but it doesn't come anywhere close to her very excellent "March".