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Sarah Dunant
Hardcover | Pages: 432 pages Rating: 3.76 | 11864 Users | 1397 Reviews
Describe Books In Favor Of Sacred Hearts
| Original Title: | Sacred Hearts |
| ISBN: | 1400063825 (ISBN13: 9781400063826) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Suor Zuana, Suor Serafina, Suor Umiliana, Madonna Chiara |
| Setting: | Ferrara(Italy) Italy |
| Literary Awards: | Walter Scott Prize Nominee (2010) |
Description During Books Sacred Hearts
The year is 1570, and in the convent of Santa Caterina, in the Italian city of Ferrara, noblewomen find space to pursue their lives under God's protection. But any community, however smoothly run, suffers tremors when it takes in someone by force. And the arrival of Santa Caterina's new novice sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the convent to its core. Ripped by her family from an illicit love affair, sixteen-year-old Serafina is willful, emotional, sharp, and defiant, young enough to have a life to look forward to and old enough to know when that life is being cut short. Her first night inside the walls is spent in an incandescent rage so violent that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is dispatched to the girl's cell to sedate her. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal between the young rebel and the clever, scholarly nun, for whom the girl becomes the daughter she will never have. As Serafina rails against her incarceration, others are drawn into the drama: the ancient, mysterious Suora Magdalena, with her history of visions and ecstasies, locked in her cell; the ferociously devout novice mistress Suora Umiliana, who comes to see in the postulant a way to extend her influence; and, watching it all, the abbess, Madonna Chiara, a woman as fluent in politics as she is in prayer. As disorder and rebellion mount, it is the abbess's job to keep the convent stable while, outside its walls, the dictates of the Counter-Reformation begin to purge the Catholic Church and impose on the nunneries a regime of terrible oppression. Sarah Dunant, the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, brings this intricate Renaissance world compellingly to life. Amid Sacred Hearts is a rich, engrossing, multifaceted love story, encompassing the passions of the flesh, the exultation of the spirit, and the deep, enduring power of friendship.Present Of Books Sacred Hearts
| Title | : | Sacred Hearts |
| Author | : | Sarah Dunant |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 432 pages |
| Published | : | July 14th 2009 by Random House (first published December 7th 2008) |
| Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Cultural. Italy. Religion |
Rating Of Books Sacred Hearts
Ratings: 3.76 From 11864 Users | 1397 ReviewsEvaluation Of Books Sacred Hearts
This book has been quite a pleasant surprise. The setting of this nice historical novel is a convent in the elegant and pleasant city of Ferrara, during the Italian Renaissance not long after the Council of Trent. Ferrara is unfairly neglected as a tourist destination in many tourist routes, which is quite baffling as the city is very charming, a real place that has proudly retained a genuine sense of its medieval and renaissance past. I visited the city in my latest trip to Europe, and it was aVery good. Set in an Italian convent in the late 16th century it tells a fictional story of one of the many (primarily middle-class) women who were packed off to convents when dowrys couldn't be raised or some other fault made them less tempting brides. Convents are, like any other enclosed setting, particularly rich settings for novels and Sarah Dunant does a particularly good job of illuminating the power plays and tensions of life in a confined environment. One of the things that particularly
I won this book in the give-away--my first. I had high hopes. I've tried picking it up again and again and have read several books in between each time I picked it up. So far, I've made it to page 95. It's very slow and tedious, if you're looking for a page-turner, you won't find it here. Since I am not a Roman Catholic, I had also hoped to gain some insights, maybe they're in there somewhere but so far, this book is just plain boring.
Any reader of my reviews knows that Im a sucker for historical fiction. If it sucks, I will finish it anyway, bitching all the way. If its good, I thank the fiction gods above. Sometimes its hard to find that good novel that makes an honest attempt at historical facts and attitudes while also maintaining an engaging writing style. Sarah Dunants Sacred Hearts has it nailed.Ive read several of Dunants novels before, all set in Renaissance Italy. She has a fascination with women, art, and the
This book was right up my alley. Not Christian fiction, which I usually find saccharine and simplistic, but literary fiction about serious Christian women. The story takes place in the fictional Benedictine abbey of Santa Caterina in Italy in the late 16th century. A new young novice arrives, clearly against her will, and her passion has an impact on the abbess, the novice mistress and especially on the dispensary sister Suora Zuana. The novel is beautifully written and sets the reader vividly
I'll admit I was spoiled for this novel by having read and re-read In This House of Brede for the past, oh 40 years it must be now. If you want an in-depth look at a Benedictine monastery, warts and all, you can't do better than Godden's masterpiece. It too is set at a time of change and upheaval--the Vatican II conferences of the 1960s; and I can't get away from the thought that Dunant, also British, was in a way trying to emulate this earlier work in her novel.However, Sacred Hearts is set in
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