The Burning of the Rose

I probably bought this book a few years after it came out, though I can't be sure. The receipt that marked my original ending place is dated 1992, and it was definitely not for the price of the book! Maybe for the cup of coffee where I bought it?

In any event, the idea of the book enchanted me: a young woman struggles to make sense of her place in the world. Claire Tarleton lives in the mid-1400's as an adopted daughter of a devoted Norman-English couple. She was found by them in her plague-ridden London home as a two-year old orphan, locked in with her parents who had just died of the plague. William Tarleton is an artist and scholar, Elisabeth is a healer, and they raise young Claire to have musical gifts and much learning. She is also show more an artist's model in Florence for many years.

The story then moves to Saint Aurele on the Norman coast, where Elisabeth lived as a girl and where she still owns lands outside of the town. There, the Tarletons set up a printing press to great acclaim, and William begins to print the Bible. And Claire becomes a performing musician while being courted by two brothers who might equally win her hand.

For the descriptions of the times, cloth, rooms, light, all those things that bring the plot fully into Europe of the Medicis and the Norman-English wars, I would have given this book hands down 5 stars. But. Ruth Nichols' writing style is continuously convoluted, sentences are divided up with references, commas, and backwards phrasing that just add a clunkiness to the flow of her story-telling. It is a style that can be used to great effect, when conveying a point or bringing something to the reader's attention. But it is too slow and awkward to narrate an entire book, and the plot and pacing suffer for it. show less