Synopsis
During the plague that decimated the population of England during the 17th century, the vicar of an isolated village tries desperately to save the townspeople from death. Narrated by his courageous young housemaid, whose own family members have become victims, YEAR OF WONDERS is a story of the heroism that can arise in extreme situations--and it's also a love story. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2001-06-05 | | Narrated by: | Stina Nielsen | | Edition Description: | Abridged |
| Size | | Height: | 5.0 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 8.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
Young Anna Frith, a vicar's maid, is faced with the loss of her family, the disintegration of her local community, and a passionate, illicit love as she and her village confront the horrors of the plague, in a historical novel based on real-life events in seventeenth-century England. A first novel.
Industry Reviews
"[A] viscerally detailed tale....Though the historical detail is absorbing, it is the story of Anna...that is Brooks' most wondrous touch."
Entertainment Weekly - Megan Harlan (08/10/2001)
"Brooks is at her best in depicting [the rhythms of life in the plague village]. Her descriptions of village life, the conditions of the sick and the dying, and the emotional struggles of day-to-day existence in plague time are riveting without being tawdry. Her prose is never hurried and remains utterly absorbing....[A]ll historical novelists are guilty of a certain amount of anachronistic thinking, and it is often hard to resist the urge to draw characters who transcend the limitations of their times. Nevertheless, this novel would have been much more satisfying if Brooks had shown how Anna struggled to understand the horrors around her as a 17th-century villager, ignorance, superstition and all. But this is, perhaps, nitpicking in an otherwise remarkably strong novel that is poignant, sophisticated and utterly absorbing."
Washington Post Book World (08/12/2001)
"Brooks's Anna, at 18, not only reads English and has a smattering of Latin, she is smarter, sexier and more selfless, sensitive and independent than anyone else in her narrative. And from the opening paragraph, she tells her story with a descriptive tenderness that sounds suspiciously contemporary....Only the occasional quaint noun...relieves this oppressive air of fine writing."
New York Times Book Review - John Vernon (08/26/2001)
"The novel glitters with careful research..., but its true strength is a deep imaginative engagement with how people are changed by catastrophe."
New Yorker (09/17/2001)
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