Kate Howard (2)

Flavia knows she is ugly. It is the one constant in her life and, because of it, her mother resents her, her father pities her, and her younger sister Pia steals all the glory, savouring the betrothal and marriage night that Flavia herself will never have. With a purple birthmark in the shape of a bird soaring across her cheek, Flavia is irrevocably marked. And yet, when her vindictive behaviour leads her parents to wash their hands of her at last, and confine her to a convent, Flavia show more discovers a remarkable truth: beauty can be assumed. Assigned to the elegant Ghostanza Dolfin, serving as her ornatrix or beautician, Flavia discovers that beauty can come out of a jar and that ugliness can be hidden beneath the glowing white mask of cerussa. Suddenly, life is full of possibility...

For the rest of the review, please see my blog:
http://theidlewoman.net/2016/10/24/the-ornatrix-kate-howard/ show less

A very eloquently written story of Falvia, a young woman cast off by her family (primarily, mother) for the mere misfortune of being born with a facial birthmark. She is sent to live at a convent where she is reined into servitude to Ghostanza, a woman of implemented beauty, and bid to maintain her as such. She becomes her Ornatrix, a Latin term for a female adorner, a hairdresser, a slave. (More to the "cerussa" that is plastered upon the faces of the vain than to the women themselves) show more Flavia later becomes a creator of such while working alongside the apothecary who mixes these masks for the vile matrons on the city. Slaves to beauty all, they eventually succumb to it in one fashion or another. There is rampant seediness, as one would expect given the time frame of early century lacking, and equal pomposity. I initially bought this book to read of the elixirs from the era, of the herbs and such and purported properties. Of that, I was not disappointed.

The writing, at times, was hard to follow and it annoyed me to have to read so far along just to find an explanation to a previous event, but even more annoying was the abundance of typos. Seriously, do publishing companies no longer employ proofreaders? Just because a word is spelled correctly does not mean it belongs where it is placed. Most distracting.

Yet it was a good story that I did enjoy for its telling. Perhaps you will, as well. show less

I received this as a review copy. Flavia, a young daughter of a dyer. is born with a birth mark on her face. In an era of superstition, Flavia is doomed to be hidden away from the world. She is sent to live in a convent, where she meets Ghostanza, a Venetian courtesan turned widow. Ghostanza decides that Flavia be her ornatrix (personal hairdresser and handmaid) The Ornatrix delves into the world of Italy during the 16th century where a woman's quest for beauty and perfection was a death show more sentence to be endured for adoration. show less

Recommended by a patron who reads a lot of historical fiction.