It has been a while since I read a historical novel, as in, actually finishing it. The last "epic" that I read with sustained interest was "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. Even then, it was a staggered reading that took me months to finish.
With my Kindle (e-reader), I finished "Sacred Hearts" by Sarah Dunant in a week after reading a sample and eventually purchasing it. Although Dunant had written other books before, this was my first encounter with her work.
From her website, www.sarahdunant.com:
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SACRED HEARTS
1570 in the Italian city of Ferrara, and the convent of Santa Caterina is filled with noble women who are married to Christ because they cannot find husbands on the outside. Enter 16 year old Serafina, howling with rage and hormones and determined to escape. Her arrival disrupts the harmony and stability of the convent, as overseen by Madonna Chiara, an abbess as fluent in politics as she is in prayer. She assigns the novice into the care of Suora Zuana, the scholarly nun who runs the dispensary and treats all manner of sickness, from pestilence and melancholy to self-inflicted wounds. As an unlikely relationship builds between the two women, other figures stand watching and waiting; most notably the novice mistress, Suora Umiliana, a crusader for God and ever stricter piety and the mysterious, decrepit Suora Magdalena, incarcerated in her cell with a history of ecstasy and visions.
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From Sarah Dunant, acclaimed author of "The Birth of Venus" and "In the Company of the Courtesan," comes an engrossing new novel set in a convent in Renaissance Italy where a defiant sixeteen-year-old girl has just been confined against her will--for life. Santa Caterina's new novice sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the convent to its core.
Serafina, a willful, emotional & furious girl, has just been ripped from her proposed marriage and sent by her noble family to Santa Caterina. During her first night inside, such is her violent, incandescent rage that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is sent to her cell to calm her with a draft of herbs. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal. And while outside the convent walls the forces of the Counter-Reformation push for ever more repressive changes, Serafina's rebellious spirit challenges not only Zuana but many other nuns who have made peace with the isolated life.
A rich, captivating, multifaceted love story, "Sacred Hearts" is a novel about power, creativity, passion -- both secular and spiritual -- and the indomitable spirit of women in an age when religious, political, and social forces were all stacked against them.
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It was a very intriguing historical period and an engrossing story. My favorite characters were Suora Zuana and Madonna Chiara. Their expertise, authority, decision making skills, and interactions with each other in the midst of convent politics and internal struggles (more pronounced, I think, with Zuana) were the most memorable for me. Both levity and tension were palpable between the two of them, yet there was an undeniable mutual respect and admiration in their passion and commitment, given their personage in Santa Caterina. I was personally impressed by their courage and faith, and how they were portrayed as women with flaws along their professed piety.
It was a rich, atmospheric story. There was mystery, intrigue, a peppering of humor, nostalgia, betrayal, deceit, conspiracy, political acuity, tension, and suspense. It was a story that would linger a while, with an appreciation (and fascination) about what it was to live ... in a convent ... in Renaissance Italy.
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