Bettie's Books

bookshelves: published-2014, net-galley, e-book, winter-20132014, medieval5c-16c, conflagration, historical-fiction, plague-disease, jewish, mystery-thriller

NetGalley/Campanile Press/Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Members' Titles

Pray for us, we sinful folk unstable...
My child is dead within these two weeks,
Soon after that we went out of this town...
Up I rose, with many a tear trickling on my cheek.

Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Canterbury Tales'

A Curious Tale
Liturgy of the Hours

From the description: In December of 1377, four children were burned to death in a house fire. Villagers traveled hundreds of miles across England to demand justice for their children's deaths.

Sinful Folk is the story of this terrible mid-winter journey as seen by Mear, a former nun who has lived for a decade disguised as a mute man, raising her son quietly in this isolated village. For years, she has concealed herself and all her history. But on this journey, she will find the strength to redeem the promise of her past. Mear begins her journey in terror and heartache, and ends in triumph and transcendence.

Opening: In the end, I listen to my fear. It keeps me awake, resounding through the frantic beating in my chest. It is there in the dry terror in my throat, the pricking of the rats' nervous feet in the darkness.




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Am always wary of books where the author has given a 5*.

Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span;
And cruel death is always near;
So frail a thing is man.

Our protagonist Mear is an interesting character, ostensibly a mute old man, all grizzled, grimey and for the most, ignored. The setting is the village of Duns, which nestles in a valley surrounded by forested hills: it is bitterly cold winter, perhaps someone should get a fire going. This is a first person narrative, which will lose a fair number of the readers that had started to have their interest picqued, yet hold on a cotton-picking moment, Wolf Hall was first person and that didn't do so badly now did it.

Page 74: Young Hugh of Lincoln

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