G1106 Book Review of The way of glory by Patricia J. Boomsma
Author: Patricia J. Boomsma
ISBN: 978-1-7326820-0-9
Publisher: Edeleboom
Type of book: Second Crusade, 1147-1153, English village life, Medieval Times, Queen Maude and Stephen, religion, muslims, christians, travel, Spain, Jerusalem, wars, siege, fighting, healing, learning from each other, morality
Year it was published: 2018
Summary:
Cate, a teenaged girl from twelfth century England, joins her brothers and aunt on a crusade to save Jerusalem that stops in Hispania to battle the Moors. Life on a battlefield strains the family's closeness as they confront the terror and contradictions of holy war. Cate's dreams of sainthood change to those of a husband and children when she falls in love with a soldier, but she finds no peace even after the family settles on land taken from the Moors. Cate's friendship with a conquered Moor soon leads to impossible choices as she faces the cost of betrayal and the loss of all she's known.
Characters:
Main characters include Cate, Willard, Sperelng and Mary. Cate is a young woman from the villein stock who in beginning is close to Willard and who wants to help her family in any way she can. She and her aunt, Mary, are very close. Cate isn't afraid of doing what is ultimately right, even if it costs her everything and she will do whatever she can for her family. Willard is either Cate's slightly older brother or younger. He desires to be a priest and later on a Hospitaleer. For me, he wasn't a comfortable person to stick around with because of his black and white thinking and of some views he ultimately began to espouse. Sperleng was a blacksmith, I believe, and a retainer of Gilbert who is in charge of an army. Sperleng often has to make extremely difficult decisions and the war wakes in him desire for more. Mary is their aunt and is talented with herbs and crafts. She is close to Cate and often sees Cate as her own daughter. She is always there for Cate and desires to live life healing other people.
Theme:
Doing the right thing is the hardest thing to do in life
Plot:
The story is in third person narrative from Cate's, Sperleng's, Mary's and Willard's points of view. Each of the characters is drawn well and the reader sees the war from all sides; from the men and women who participated. It also covered the village life and of oncoming changes for some families as they dared to reach out for dreams that were way beyond them. The story also presents the 12th century mindset well and is chronological.
Author Information:
(From HFVBT)
AMAZON | BARNES AND NOBLE | INDIEBOUND
About the Author
I grew up in a far southwestern suburb of Chicago among the trees and sloughs of the Cook County Park District, then attended college in Michigan. After graduating, I dreamed of an academic life teaching English literature and began a Ph.D. program at Purdue University. There I concentrated on medieval studies, receiving a Master’s and continuing on for four more years before realizing that no one I knew was finding a permanent, let alone tenure-track, position. So, instead of writing my dissertation I went to law school. I moved to Arizona to escape the brutal midwestern winters and have been practicing law there for over thirty years. My first novel, The Way of Glory, is, in part, an extension of my love for all things medieval.
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One of the classes I took for my major in history is History of Crusades, and in a lot of ways the Crusades was pretty much a life-changing class for me because it exposed the fatalities that arrogance and ignorance can cause in people who know little of the world. I recall little from Crusades class, except that it was full of contradictions, and, ultimately, postponing the inevitable. What
I most recall is coming face to face with the people who hate Jews. Bringing in this mindset, it was quite a delight to discover THE WAY OF GLORY by Patricia J. Boomsma because she shows a poor family involved in second Crusade, from mid 12th century, and yet the tale was highly realistic as we get to know Cate, Sperleng, Mary and Willard, three siblings and an aunt. The war, the sieges and people change them, ultimately forcing them to confront the meaning and prejudice in their action. What I would have appreciated is an afterword and a disclaimer about the blood libel that was mentioned in the story. I understand that she is trying to go for realistic and not something for modern sensibilities, which she has done a good job, but it would be nice if she addressed the anti-Judaism in her book in the afterword, because, so I am told, a lot of people still believe in blood libel about the Jews. Other than that, an excellent tale.
This is for HFVBT
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(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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