A 2014 Printz Honor Winner
I just want to start by saying this book is bonkers.
The Crown Princess of the small, Renaissance-era, Scandinavian city of Skyggehavn is now married to the duke of Östergötland (now a part of Sweden), as part of the pact for peace among those countries following several years of war. She is twelve years old, barely of child-bearing age, but she's sickly, stricken with the same ailment that her four sisters and one brother suffer as well, and her father, King Christian V is determined to avoid war. As she and her new husband are just about to consummate this marriage, she goes into a fit and dies horrifically, setting off several months of palace upheaval. In the midst of all of this are two young women, Ava Bingen, a seamstress to Queen Isabel, and Midi Sorte, a slave-turned-nurse to the royal children. When we first meet Ava, she has stuck the queen with a needle while repairing the queen's dress, and, after several hours in a prison cell, is made into a nurse by Nicholas Bullen, a minor lord in the court with his eye on becoming more, who wants her to spy for him. Midi, on the other hand, has been asked by the court historian, Arthur Grammaticus, to write her own version of history, so that he may add it to his. It doesn't take long for the two women to become irrevocably entwined with the queen, mad with grief (or is it something else?), and the events unfolding around them.
So why is it bonkers? Susann Cokal sums it up best in her afterword, when she mentioned that, when asked what she was writing, she replied with "it's a fairy tale about syphilis." And it totally is! So much of this book deals with the minutia of everyday Renaissance life, right down to the fact that everyone was surrounded by bugs and dirt and filth, medicine did more harm that good, and that for many, gettin' it on meant exposing you to a variety of diseases that were likely to make your life a living hell and then make you crazy. But don't get me wrong, despite all the bonkers-ness going on in this story, I still loved it. The history at play here is just obscure enough for me to question if any of this ever happened (a quick glance at the author's website shows that it didn't) but the everyday details of that time period are deeply rooted in fact, which shows in the story. While much of the story centers around the queen, Ava, and Midi, we spend plenty of time with the king, Arthur Grammaticus, the doctors tasked with healing the royal children, and the horrible, power hungry Nicholas, who has a truly novel (and cringe-worthy) way for staving off the Italian Fire (a.k.a, syphilis). This is not a book for everyone; in fact, if I wasn't already the type to stick through things like the six seasons of insanity that is True Blood, then I'm not sure I would've been into it. It's also not a book for young teens, unless they are incredibly mature (there's a fair amount of sex, consensual and not, that takes place). But if any of this, even these caveats at the end, still leave you intrigued, then check it out for yourself and see if you think it's as wonderfully bonkers as I do.
(Read as part of YALSA's Hub Reading Challenge.)
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