The Story of Alice and Petronilla

Donated by Jenny Grainger and chosen from www.readireland.com for the Bookcrossing Anniversary Convention Dublin 2012.

Released at the the Bookcrossing Anniversary Convention Dublin 012.

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This book sound interesting :-)

Kilkenny, 1324: two women, Alice Kyteler, the wealthiest woman in Leinster, and Petronilla of Meath, her maid, stand accused of witchcraft. One is burnt at the stake, another flees. This event finds particular resonance in today's world of conspiracy theory, uncertainty and credulity, in which once more the individual is subject to the pressures of Church and state. In medieval fourteenth-century Ireland the powers of light and darkness, attuned to the glories of god and to his counterpart the devil, are rife. Alice, outspoken daughter of a wealthy Flemish banker, has had four husbands, and is beset by rivalry and the gossip of a medieval Anglo-Norman town. Her beautiful maid Petronilla is the child of an itinerant shoemaker, her lover Sir Arnaud le Poer is seneschal and lord of south Leinster. Her nemesis Richard de Ledrede, an English Fransciscan, scholar, poet and now bishop of Ossory, is determined to restore clerical power and raise taxes to restore the dilapidated cathedral in Kilkenny. Obsessed with witchcraft, he finds ample fuel in the machinations of the wilful widow Kytler. Outside the city walls the native Irish are resurgent after 150 years of dispossession. The Devil to Pay, the story of Alice and Petronilla, erupts from this remarkable tapestry. Hugh Ryan creates a vivid panorama of a pivotal era in Irish history. Hugh Ryan is s a native of Skerries in north county Dublin. (Info Amazon.com)

I enjoyed this book, I really like historic novel, and now that I have been to Ireland recently, this topic was perfect :-)

It's a bit of a change not to like the main character, Alice, very much - though I understand her motives and applaud her for not backing down from the male-dominated reality. It works out fine for her for nearly 40 years. I don't like Petronilla much either, she's too naive ... The figures of brother Fergal and John and their personal stories were very touching. I didn't find access to Robin , though. Altogether a nice novel, but not great, nothing new, nothing special, except for the genereal knowledge of early Irish history, which I found very interesting... How the English - no, Anglo-Normans really, set foot in Ireland and "simply" didn't chase themselves away any more over the century, profiting from the never ending squarrels between Irish leaders or would-be leaders. Astonishing, really ...

Counts for Ireland.

Liebe Finderin, lieber Finder,

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