Year Of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks – 308 pages
Book Blurb
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna’s eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a “year of wonders.”
My Review: 4. 5 stars
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This is the first book I’d read by this author and writing this review many years later, I still find this author to create amazing works of historical fiction. This book takes you to the mid 17th century in England and lets you inside the lives of the villagers whose lives are inexplicably destroyed by the plaque. Our protagonist, Anna, is an amazing young woman whose values are thoroughly put to the test. This book has resonated with me for years.
Quotes I liked:
“It is a great thing to be young and to live without pain. And yet it is a blessing few of us count until we lose it.”
-“G-d warns us not to love any earthly thing above Himself, and yet He sets in a mother’s heart such a fierce passion for her babes that I do not comprehend how He can test us so.”
