I am loving this book!
Read my review and see what you think, I highly recommend this one.
It's the book of the month for our book group.
My thoughts . . .
Historial Fiction is one of my most favorite genre to read. And this one has held me enthralled from almost the first page when we come upon Hrotrud, the village midwife, trudging through the blizzard to reach the beautiful Saxon wife of the ironically cruel village priest as she prepares to deliver her 3rd baby. Being a Labor & Delivery nurse, I read her account of the delivery with a great deal of interest. Thank goodness we seldom have to resort to those extreme measures today. But no cesarean deliveries in sterile operating rooms back in the 9th century.
The baby Joan grows up on the pagan Saxon tales and songs from her mother an op-positionally becomes a great scholar in the classics, Greek, Latin, and language. All along her usual behaviors for a woman are considered ungodly and sinful, whereas she is the exact opposite as she becomes an unusually talented and gifted healer.
Pope Joan is an excellent combination of fact and fiction, the plot is a clever one weaving historical facts and figures around a legendary figure we have little information on. In fact, Pope Joan's reign as Pope Joan VIII was considered fact until about 100 years ago when she was suddenly erased from history.
This book has something for everyone, history, deception, love and romance (great for February ;), a captivating read from the first page on. Amazon readers give it 4.5 stars, Goodreads.com 4.02 average read.
3 comments:
I learned a little about her in my history class! How fascinating there is an actual book on her. When I finish my other 3 books that I am reading (sigh) I will definitely have to read that one. Thank you for the introduction to it!
I enjoyed this book as well.
Have you read the Kingdom and the Crown? I'm reading them again for my 3rd time. I love them. They are by Gerald Lund.
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