![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
(no subject)
HANGMAN BLIND, by Cassandra Clark.
Cover copy: November, 1382. The month of the dead. Close to the Feast of St. Martin in the fifth year of King Richard's reign, Abbess Hildegard rides out for York and the Abbey of Meaux.
This is no ordinary journey. It is a time of rival popes, a boy king, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler's murder. As Hildegard embarks on a perilous mission to secure the future of her priory, with only her two hounds for protection, she encounters a gibbet with five bloodied corpses and then the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who was the boy, how was he connected to the men hanging from the gibbet, and what do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matter how terrible it may be.
When even her childhood home, Castle Hutton, turns out not to be a safe haven from murder, Hildegard realizes she will have to summon all of her courage and wisdom to counter the dark forces that threaten her friends and family as well as her country.
The first in an engrossing new series of medieval mysteries, HANGMAN BLIND introduces a remarkable and unforgettable new heroine.
Gender of detective: female
If one wants to write a medieval mystery, with a female detective, by far your best bet is a nun. As is pointed out in this novel, nuns had most of the same rights that married women did, without having to answer to a husband. So both this novel and the next have nun detectives.
There the similarities pretty much end, however. This one focuses on the politics of the time, both religious and secular. Everything is very gritty, as if to make it more real. Even Hildegard isn't allowed to escape unscathed: not only is there a lovingly described attempted rape, the narrative makes a point of sexualizing her perceptions of her friends and acquaintance, as if Hildegard somehow would be less human if she didn't feel sexual desire, vows or no vows.
I wasn't particularly impressed. Part of it was the self-conscious grittiness, noted above. Part of it was the heavy accent on the aforementioned politics, never my favorite subject. And part of it was the even more gratuitous survival of the villain, for the evident purpose of, well, having a recurring villain. Bah.
*
"Stef, if you're going to keep sexing up Disney songs, at least do it in writing."
(No, really. I already knew that 'A Whole New World' could be really sketch, but 'Be Our Guest'? Poor, poor Lumiere.)
Cover copy: November, 1382. The month of the dead. Close to the Feast of St. Martin in the fifth year of King Richard's reign, Abbess Hildegard rides out for York and the Abbey of Meaux.
This is no ordinary journey. It is a time of rival popes, a boy king, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler's murder. As Hildegard embarks on a perilous mission to secure the future of her priory, with only her two hounds for protection, she encounters a gibbet with five bloodied corpses and then the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who was the boy, how was he connected to the men hanging from the gibbet, and what do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matter how terrible it may be.
When even her childhood home, Castle Hutton, turns out not to be a safe haven from murder, Hildegard realizes she will have to summon all of her courage and wisdom to counter the dark forces that threaten her friends and family as well as her country.
The first in an engrossing new series of medieval mysteries, HANGMAN BLIND introduces a remarkable and unforgettable new heroine.
Gender of detective: female
If one wants to write a medieval mystery, with a female detective, by far your best bet is a nun. As is pointed out in this novel, nuns had most of the same rights that married women did, without having to answer to a husband. So both this novel and the next have nun detectives.
There the similarities pretty much end, however. This one focuses on the politics of the time, both religious and secular. Everything is very gritty, as if to make it more real. Even Hildegard isn't allowed to escape unscathed: not only is there a lovingly described attempted rape, the narrative makes a point of sexualizing her perceptions of her friends and acquaintance, as if Hildegard somehow would be less human if she didn't feel sexual desire, vows or no vows.
I wasn't particularly impressed. Part of it was the self-conscious grittiness, noted above. Part of it was the heavy accent on the aforementioned politics, never my favorite subject. And part of it was the even more gratuitous survival of the villain, for the evident purpose of, well, having a recurring villain. Bah.
*
"Stef, if you're going to keep sexing up Disney songs, at least do it in writing."
(No, really. I already knew that 'A Whole New World' could be really sketch, but 'Be Our Guest'? Poor, poor Lumiere.)