![]() ![]() ![]() LaFevers’ ambitious tapestry includes poison and treason and murder, valor and honor and slow love, suspense and sexuality and mercy.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Ismae’s narrative voice is fluid and solid, her spying and killing skills impeccable. Brittany fights to remain independent from France, war looms and suitors vie nefariously for the duchess’ hand. It is all determined by the god.” After Ismae’s first two assassinations, the abbess sends her to Brittany’s high court to ferret out treason against the duchess and to kill anyone Mortain marks, even if it’s someone Ismae trusts-or loves. We do not decide who to kill or why or when. ![]() “We are mere instruments of Mortain….His handmaidens, if you will. ![]() Mortain, where nuns teach her hundreds of ways to kill a man. A hedge priest and herbwitch spirit Ismae to the convent of St. When the pig farmer who paid three coins to wed Ismae sees the red scar across her back, he cracks her in the skull and hurls her into the root cellar until a priest can come “to burn you or drown you.” The scar shows that Ismae’s mother poisoned her in utero Ismae’s survival of that poisoning proves her sire is Mortain, god of death. Fiction and history coalesce in a rich, ripping tale of assassinations, political intrigue and religion in 15th-century Brittany. ![]()
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