Alys Clare just keeps getting better and better. In her fourth Hawkenlye Abbey installment, The Chatter of Maidens, she surpasses her previous works easily with a complex and deliciously twisted plot. Abbess Helewise and her close friend Sir Josse d’Acquin join forces to discover the mysterious origin and truth behind the lies of three sisters who have come to Hawkenlye. The oldest, Alba, is a professed nun from an distant abbey that she refuses to name. She brought her two younger sisters to take the veil. Meriel and Berthe are more timid than she is and are also cowed by Alba, who is uncaring and disobedient.
Helewise suspects something is amiss with ‘Sister’ Alba, but when she chastises her for countermanding an order from her, the defiant nun takes a swing at her. At her wit’s end, the Abbess locks her up and sets off on a journey to find the abbey from whence she came, using what little clues she has.
Meanwhile, Sir Josse is laid up in the abbey’s infirmary, recovering from a near-fatal infection brought on by an old wound. Facing the brutal facts that he almost died, he must stay behind and continue his recovery while Helewise with two of the brother monks set out for Ely.
Clare takes her characters on an interesting journey through England’s fens and swamps where they find a Templar monastery and a strange abbey where the abbess seems to know Helewise’s intent before she tells her. They also find a burned out building with a body inside. Suddenly, Alba and her sisters are mixed up in murder.
Clare’s knowledge of religious communities in the twelfth century adds a new dimension to historical mysteries. She paints the grittier side of life in the cloister next to those more prosperous with stark vividness.
It’s also interesting to note the development of her main character. Although, the readers know she is in love with Sir Josse, Abbess Helewise is slow to realize it even though she is otherwise shrewd and intelligent. It is fun to see the upright and proper Helewise struggle with her own feelings, which conflict were religious vows. Will she ever realize that she is a woman, regardless of her vocation?
Clare always brings something new and unexpected in her novels. She brings the twelfth century alive with her words.
Helewise suspects something is amiss with ‘Sister’ Alba, but when she chastises her for countermanding an order from her, the defiant nun takes a swing at her. At her wit’s end, the Abbess locks her up and sets off on a journey to find the abbey from whence she came, using what little clues she has.
Meanwhile, Sir Josse is laid up in the abbey’s infirmary, recovering from a near-fatal infection brought on by an old wound. Facing the brutal facts that he almost died, he must stay behind and continue his recovery while Helewise with two of the brother monks set out for Ely.
Clare takes her characters on an interesting journey through England’s fens and swamps where they find a Templar monastery and a strange abbey where the abbess seems to know Helewise’s intent before she tells her. They also find a burned out building with a body inside. Suddenly, Alba and her sisters are mixed up in murder.
Clare’s knowledge of religious communities in the twelfth century adds a new dimension to historical mysteries. She paints the grittier side of life in the cloister next to those more prosperous with stark vividness.
It’s also interesting to note the development of her main character. Although, the readers know she is in love with Sir Josse, Abbess Helewise is slow to realize it even though she is otherwise shrewd and intelligent. It is fun to see the upright and proper Helewise struggle with her own feelings, which conflict were religious vows. Will she ever realize that she is a woman, regardless of her vocation?
Clare always brings something new and unexpected in her novels. She brings the twelfth century alive with her words.
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