Reviews and Comments

So, I was down to read this as soon as I knew it was historical fiction with Sephardi Jewish elements, like The Pomegranate Gate. It’s an interesting period of history.

(I know that’s Leigh Bardugo’s actual background, by the way. A lot of her recent, non-YA work involves Sephardi characters, like Ninth House.)

I’ve also been reading Bardugo since Six of Crows or thereabouts.

I’m also pretty down to read, well. If you casually peruse my shelves you’ll see “witches and wizards.” I don’t know if that’s what Luzia would call herself, but it’s an interesting magic system—Ladino refranes and music. In other words, is it witchcraft or magically successful Jewish prayer? and is there a difference between those two to the Inquisition?

I’m also intrigued by the romantic subplot with a cursed immortal being. He’s not a vampire, but he’s got the world-weary voice of a man who’s been alive a long time… a VERY long time. My Goodreads shelves are also groaning under the tag “vampires.”

So.

Luzia is a scullion with a talent and ambition. Her aunt is a rich man’s mistress. But we’re in a period of Spain where her Jewish ancestry is a serious liability. Luzia is nominally Catholic, and is shocked when her aunt turns out to be “a Judaizer” even though she has been saying Latin prayers while thinking them in Hebrew, just like her parents taught her, and hiding her Jewish ancestry…

And her aunt’s rich boyfriend thinks he can use her power to gain political advantage.

This is generally a quick and fun read. Marked as three stars for two reasons:

1. The plot is kind of… squishy? The inciting incident feels like it comes quite late, and generally it feels more like a character study than a plot. This isn’t necessarily bad! But… it slowed the story down.

2. Lines like:

“But it is much circumscribed now by your phallus-mutilating, Hell-condemning desert god.”

“I think our sexual practices would probably scandalize you modern people, with your tyrannical, pleasure-hating desert god and your unnatural embarrassment of your genitals.”

“Jews worship an angry Sky God while Christians worship a God who is Love and Kindness!” is an antisemitic trope, so these lines made me uncomfortable as a Jewish woman.

That said, I did appreciate that the author’s Cro Magnon society was egalitarian and sexually liberated. I feel like the retrogressive gender politics cave people trope is kind of a sexist fantasy about Why Women Need Men (ugh). I mean, I have no problems with a bi poly utopia, bring it!

So… mostly fun, but not perfect.