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England, 1640. Sixteen-year-old Isabella is forced to flee her home when her father's radical ideas lead him into a suicidal stand against Oliver Cromwell's army. Taking refuge in Amsterdam and desperate to find a means to survive, Isabella finds work with an elderly printer, Master de Aquila, and his enigmatic young assistant, Willem. When Master de Aquila travels to Venice to find a publisher brave enough to print his daring new book, Isabella accompanies him and discovers a world of possibility - where women work alongside men as equal partners, and where books and beliefs are treasured. But in a continent torn apart by religious intolerance, constant danger lurks for those who don't watch their words. And when the agents of the Spanish Inquisition kidnap de Aquila to stop him printing his book, Isabella and Willem become reluctant allies in a daring chase across Europe to rescue him from certain death.… (more)
User reviews
Ugh, this book. The more I think about it, the more crazy it makes me. While the book description should have clued me in that the plot was going to hop around a bit, I didn't realize how many different novels this book was trying to be. From Cromwell's England, to 17th century Amsterdam, to 17th century Venice, and then the Spanish Inquisition, each of these on their own could have been a fine backdrop for a good novel. Instead, the book hops between them all with very little transition between each, leaving the book with a perpetual feeling of "and then this and then this and then this." If Isabella had been a stronger character, I may have been able to overlook these flaws, but despite being written in the first person I never got any emotional sense of Isabella, just many facts about her. The only positive things I can say about this book is that the language used in writing the descriptive passages of landscapes is beautiful and evocative. But not even that can save a novel that's this much of a mess.