All right, I won’t lie. The book started off really slowly, and I admit I wanted to put it down several times. It got to the point, even, where I just wanted to set it aside alltogether, thinking that if it wasn’t going to pick up the pace that I didn’t really want to spend precious novel-planning time reading it. I’m very glad that I continued, though, to read what turned out to be a spectacularly written composition about love, longing, and loss.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier may be one of those books you’ve seen a lot, perhaps you’ve read something about it here and there, seen it mentioned, but you never really thought to pick it up. Perhaps it’s because it was shelved in the Gothic Romance section of your bookstore, right before Georgette Heyer and Barbara Michaels. You thought, well, it’s probably not my thing, so I’m not going to bother with it. Instead I’ll continue through life hearing references to it, and shrugging. At least that’s what I thought.
By all accounts and appearances, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks should be a beautifully received masterpiece about the plauge in 17th century England. In a small Derbyshire village, residents begin to die from this horrid disease, described in such detail as to make the reader fully aware of the devastation. Michael Mompellion, the rector, pursues a plan to shut off all communication outside the village, save the slight contact needed for gaining of supplies and food for life, to thus inhibit the infection of surrounding villages with this plague. Some disagree.
