This book brought an enigmatic historical personage from the Middle Ages to vivid life. Little is known about the actual poet Marie de France so Lauren Groff had a blank slate to work from. She rose to the challenge, imagining and setting down on paper a fully human woman, who experienced love, trauma, mysteries and prejudice with courage and creativity. The writing was so lucid and specific that I truly felt that I had time-traveled to France in the eleventh century and met Marie in person. I marveled at the way she didn't let her big emotions prevent her from working hard everyday to build a utopian society of women. This book captured me as a reader and inspired me as a writer.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS AN OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Gorgeous, sensual, addictive' SARA COLLINS 'Brightly lit' NAOMI ALDERMAN
Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse for courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court and sent to Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey.
Lauren Groff's modern masterpiece is about the establishment of a female utopia.
'A propulsive, captivating read' BRIT BENNETT 'Fascinating, beguiling, vivid' MARIAN KEYES 'A dazzlingly clever tale' THE TIMES 'A thrillingly vivid,…
As an English major in college, I knew about theories that Shakespeare didn't write his plays, but this is the first time that I have read a novel that imagined the story of that 'ghost' writer. A Jewish young woman whose family came from Italy, Emilia Bassano was a talented musician, writer and thinker. Her story is woven together with a modern young woman, also a playwright and a descendant of Emilia's. With unflinching realism, the author Jodi Picoult paints a vivid portrait of the two women and their heroic efforts to express themselves creatively in a man's world. Picoult has inspired me to reread many of my favorite Shakespeare plays with the perspective that the mysterious writer was actually Emilia.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring” (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.
“You’ll fall in love with Emilia Bassano, the unforgettable heroine based on a real woman that Picoult brings vividly to life in her brilliantly researched new novel.”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Women
Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater…
I have loved every book by Ann Patchett that I have ever read from Bel Canto to State of Wonder to the Dutch House. She is such a gifted writer whose plots are always intriguing and full of twists and turns. Tom Lake was of the same high quality, yet wholly fresh and distinct from Patchett's other works, especially in terms of the interesting settings. I love the way she uses humor in her writing and little moments of affection between characters. The bond between the mother Laura and her three daughters is richly drawn and totally believable. Furthermore, it takes a gifted writer to render each daughter as a unique individual and Laura's relationship with each one as distinct from the others. And the technique of Laura gradually telling her daughters the story of her younger self while they pick cherries on the family farm is truly genius.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER * THE NO. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *
A REESE WITHERSPOON AND BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK
'A new Ann Patchett novel is always cause for celebration ... and Tom Lake is one of her best' i
'This comforting summer read has it all ... Young love, sibling rivalry and deep mother-daughter relationships' REESE WITHERSPOON
'Filled with the moments I live for in a story' BONNIE GARMUS, author of Lessons in Chemistry
'One of the most beloved authors of her generation' SUNDAY TIMES
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This is a story about Peter Duke who went on…
Fifteen-year-old Felise, an apprentice scribe in medieval France, is in a desperate situation. She yearns to find a way to become a writer and a book shop owner, but in order to achieve her dreams she must first escape from her cruel guardian, who is plotting an arranged marriage for her.
As the Hundred Years’ War rages all around Felise, Joan of Arc blazes into history, claiming God-given powers to set France free from English control. Her courage inspires Felise to run away, but every day of the journey that follows draws the young scribe further into the underbelly of a world she has never known—a world of burning villages and terrified peasants left behind in the path of war. She soon encounters a young man from home who begins to pursue her, and she is drawn to him despite her quest for freedom and distrust of men. But following after the army, she meets Joan face to face, and finds herself torn between her heroine’s single-minded sense of purpose and her own desire for love and personal fulfillment.
A Tale of Two Maidens brings to life the story of an ordinary medieval girl on an extraordinary adventure—one that will require her to dig within herself to claim her own true, independent, and heroic destiny.
