Extraordinary story. Wonderful and warm characters, humorous and sweet, and a bit of sly sarcasm for good measure. ( )

Judith Merkle Riley's A Vision of Light is one of my favorite novels, and Margaret of Ashbury is probably the literary character I'd most like to be.
Riley's Margaret is so alive! This 14th-century Englishwoman is inspired in a "vision of light" to write her memoirs and do the unheard of - tell a woman's story. Because is she unable to write, she hires the ever-hungry, every-grumpy Brother Gregory to record her memories. Contemptuous of her ambition, he is nevertheless hungry enough to accept her offer. The story then alternates between Margaret's and Gregory's exchanges in the present and her telling the story of her life and adventures.
It's a fast-paced and interesting novel; most of all it's fun. It's also well-researched and authentic, but Riley's research is never a burden for the reader. Her touch is light, and her characters charming. ( )

http://wanderingcoyote.blogspot.com/2... ( )

I don't give up on books very often, but I gave up on this one. It just didn't seem worth the bother.

I should know better than to read medieval historical fiction: I am a medieval historian, and a historical novel has to be really REALLY good before it can distract me from its historical inaccuracies (or at the very least, it has to be clear to me from a literary standpoint why the inaccuracies were necessary). All in all, Riley did her research well, but there were still some really big historical inaccuracies that didn't need to be there. To name just a few: women in the 14th century generally didn't marry until their late teens or early twenties (not 14, like Margaret); the witch scare didn't begin until the 16th century, so all the fear of witchcraft in the book is an anachronism; there was a good legal system in England, and lords couldn't just punish people however they wanted to; women had legal rights to inherit, so Margaret could have had her first husband punished and inherited his fortune (and they did not make people walk on hot coals to test if they were guilty!).

But historical inaccuracies aside, I just didn't enjoy the book. It seems like there's a rape or a wife-beating on every other page, which gets depressing and tedious. The theological/philosophical discussions seem trite and forced (Riley just seems to be quoting basic textbooks about medieval theology, instead of really understanding the debates). The story was entirely uninteresting, but I just never knew where it was going. The characters were likable (well, the ones who weren't wife-beating rapists), but not very original (the wise old midwife, the hypocritical cleric, etc.) I thought there was lots of room for interesting development with Margaret's visions and her gift for healing, but Riley never took it anywhere.

So all in all, this book just didn't seem worth the bother to me. ( )

A friend gave me "A Vision of Light" as a birthday gift. I was intrigued by the novel, which tells the story of a young woman living in the 14th century. When Margaret of Ashbury acquired some supernatural powers, I was a little put-off by that element of the story. However, I was soon won over by Margaret's resourcefulness in the face of adversity, the historical details of the story, and the gentle humor of the storytelling. A delightful book that was a little slow-going for me at first, but soon caught my interest. ( )