Sections
The Miniaturist is a historical novel disguised as a mystery one: its real aim is not to explore the enigma that the title character represents, but to present and criticize the Dutch society of the early 17th century.
The protagonist is Petronella Oortman, or Nella, a young woman who marries a successful merchant she doesn’t know, named Johannes Brandt, and goes on to live with him in Amsterdam. Her new life, however, is not as she had imagined. Being constantly ignored by her husband and finding in her sister-in-law a hostile figure, Nella only feels comfortable around her wedding gift: a detailed dollhouse that faithfully represents the rooms where she now lives in. [...]
The Pillars of the Earth has the foundation of its narrative solidly set: the characters’ greatest conflicts are outlined at the beginning, serving as solid columns for the structure that will organize the most important events of the story, with actions always generating consequences, making the scale of the events gradually increase until the climatic end.
The novel’s various plots all gravitate around the construction of a cathedral in Kingsbridge, England, during the 12th century, focusing on some of the figures crucial to the venture. It has a simple structure: the Kingsbridge cathedral begins to be built, the villains draw up a plan to bring it down or [...]
Written by Clare Vanderpool, Navigating Early is a touching novel, whose narrative is constructed by a surplus of parallels and allegories. The frequent mix of fantasy and reality, however, doesn’t quite land, as it relies heavily on bizarre coincidences to work.
The story takes place in 1945, following a trip two boys undertake through a forest in Maine. Jackie, the protagonist, is a 13-year-old boy who has just lost his mother and is put in a military school by his father. There, he meets a weird boy named Early Auden, and a friendship starts. During Christmas, Early invites Jackie to go on an adventure with him. Jackie, feeling alone, accepts.
Although Jackie is the [...]
Bernard Cornwell, the author of the acclaimed The Warlord Chronicles and The Saxon Stories, is known to have a clear predilection for historical fiction since virtually all of his work belongs to this genre. The Archer’s Tale, the first book in the trilogy called Grail Quest is one more novel written in a similar style, with a plot that starts at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. However, more concerned with describing the great battles than with telling a proper story, Cornwell develops a narrative so shallow and uninteresting that the main plot gets even ignored by its own characters.
Thomas, the protagonist, is the son of a priest in the village of Hookton in England. [...]
Giordano Bruno, friar, philosopher, and the protagonist of Heresy, was persecuted by the Inquisition at the end of the sixteenth century for preaching the infinity of the universe and its heliocentric model, preceding even the famous Galileo. It is said that his last speech, when he was finally captured by the Inquisition in 1600 and sentenced to death for heresy, was “Perhaps you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it”. His well-documented history serves as the basis for the making of a thriller that, despite having an interesting historical setting, fails to bring together the elements that form its various plotlines.