Keturah And Lord Death

published	November 2006 by Front Street
binding	Hardcover
isbn	1932425292 (isbn13: 9781932425291)
pages	216
description	Martine Leavitt offers a spellbinding story, interweaving elements of classic fantasy and high romance. Keturah follows a legendary hart into the king...more [close] Martine Leavitt offers a spellbinding story, interweaving elements of classic fantasy and high romance. Keturah follows a legendary hart into the king's forest, where she becomes hopelessly lost. Her strength diminishes until, finally, she realizes that death is near. Little does she know that he is a young, handsome lord, melancholy and stern. Renowned for her storytelling, Keturah is able to charm Lord Death with a story and thereby gain a reprieve -- but only for twenty-four hours. She must find her one true love within that time, or all is lost. Keturah searches desperately while the village prepares for an unexpected visit from the king, and Keturah is thrust into a prominent role as mysterious happenings alarm her friends and neighbors. Lord Death's presence hovers over all until Keturah confronts him one last time in the harrowing climax. [close]
date added	03-13-07 edit book

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Should Keturah love Death or John?	0	03/31/2008 11:03PM

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Carol rated it:

07/08/07

At page 50 or so: I'm rereading this, and so far am liking it less. Keturah has one day to find her true love or she'll die -- but she's spending that day making biscuits, trying to get her two girlfriends hooked up, having lunch at the Lord's manor, and hunting down lemons to make a pie for a baking competition that isn't for days??? Shouldn't she be scrambling more? Where's the urgency? And she sure takes her time warning the village that a plague is coming.

SPOILER: Still feel there are no...more At page 50 or so: I'm rereading this, and so far am liking it less. Keturah has one day to find her true love or she'll die -- but she's spending that day making biscuits, trying to get her two girlfriends hooked up, having lunch at the Lord's manor, and hunting down lemons to make a pie for a baking competition that isn't for days??? Shouldn't she be scrambling more? Where's the urgency? And she sure takes her time warning the village that a plague is coming.

SPOILER: Still feel there are no clues that indicate she is attracted to Death -- sure, he's handsome, but she shrinks from his icy touch, etc. There was an early hint, that she's lived with death ever since she was born -- so she's comfortable with it.

Finished last night: OK, she never really showed an attraction to Death (as a corporeal husband), no big surprise since he's utterly unloveable. I do understand that she feels at peace with the idea of dying, decides she has no need to stick around Tide-by Rood because her "work here is done" but to allow Death to take her (I still think of this as suicide)? Think of the hurt her parting caused those left behind -- and John Temsland's pain most of all. Cruel and selfish, and I didn't buy it. There was no inevitability in that final decision. She loved that village, her grandmother and her neighbors; why would she ever leave them willingly?

If I had that eyeball thingy, I'd be methodically going up to any human being with a penis to see if he was my true love. I'd probably check out the women, too. She takes a very lackadaisical approach to such dire circumstances. I mean, it's death to her if she doesn't find him but she only occasionally checks the charm. And it gets tiresome to hear her rationalize about the eyeball's tepid reaction to Ben Marshall, the guy who will only marry the best cook. Her true love obviously isn't Ben, and shouldn't she know that simply because she isn't all that attracted to him?

I would have suggested to the author that Death give her until the fair to find her true love right from the beginning -- then she wouldn't have had the weirdness of the day-by-day worrying about finding her true love when she knew Death could take her at the end of each day -- and he could have required a story from her each night until the fair. Or, failing that, Leavitt could have made Keturah really worry all day long about that time when the shadows reach the cottage and her meetings with Death -- or if Keturah really isn't worried about dying and knows she'll be able to barter for another day, then hint at that somehow.

I would also have suggested that she make Keturah's choice to go with Death a sacrifice of epic proportions, an if/then proposition where others will suffer if she stays.

It helps to think of the opening scene, where Keturah is telling her story to the townspeople, to know that it is probably meant to be told in "heaven" after all her friends have also bought the farm. Otherwise, it's just a very, very creepy tale to spin about herself around a campfire.

Reading the author's notes gives us another clue as to why the book was written as it was: Leavitt's sister died young and so had to accept Death with bravery. But a reader who isn't privy to that information comes into this book unprepared for the ending. Sure, Death is inevitable, but it isn't desirable. Or maybe it is if you believe in an afterlife? Maybe that's my problem. Death, to me, is like slamming shut the covers of a book--forever. Life is too precious to actually welcome Death if you're healthy and young. Does any healthy person actually look forward to death?

Beautiful prose though, with only a few grammatical errors. The voice has a certain distance to it, a lack of deep emotion, that disappointed me....less

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Bonnie Gayle rated it:

03/08/08

bookshelves: fantasy-sf, historical-fiction, library-books, reviewed

Read in March, 2008

Gah! This book was wonderful, and would be an automatic add to my favorites, except for 2 things. I know. Me and my 2 picky things, but they're big issues. Maybe eventually this will go in my favorites, but for now those 2 things are bugging me too much.

Keturah follows a beautiful deer into the woods one day, and after a long chase, discovers that she is lost and cannot find her way back. On the verge of dying, Lord Death comes to take her, but, Keturah, renowned in her small town for her st...more Gah! This book was wonderful, and would be an automatic add to my favorites, except for 2 things. I know. Me and my 2 picky things, but they're big issues. Maybe eventually this will go in my favorites, but for now those 2 things are bugging me too much.

Keturah follows a beautiful deer into the woods one day, and after a long chase, discovers that she is lost and cannot find her way back. On the verge of dying, Lord Death comes to take her, but, Keturah, renowned in her small town for her storytelling abilities, tells Lord Death the story of a girl who has lived her whole life waiting for her true love. Lord Death is taken by her story, and also by her, and lets her have a reprieve of one day, but he will take her as his own wife the next night if she has not found her true love.

The next day Keturah goes to the town Witch and gets an enchanted eye ball from her. She will know when she has found her true love when she looks him in the eyes and the eyeball stills it's searching, but, despite looking at the men in town all day, the eyeball keeps searching.

Growing desperate, she gets another's day reprieve by telling Lord Death another story, but, if the eye never stills, and she never finds her true love, what can her fate possibly be?

If that synopsis doesn't make you want to read it, nothing will, and you should. It's a REALLY good story...but what are my 2 picky issues? Well, I'll try really hard not to give anything away.
The first one is that there is a small part before and after the story, that shows that Keturah is telling the story, that makes up the rest of the book, to a group of people. But within the context of the story, that scenario is impossible. I don't know if that is supposed to put the story into a new light, and I was almost tempted to reread the book to figure it out, but it just does not make sense unless everything that happened in the story is just a made up story that Keturah is telling...but then what really did happen to her?
The second issue is that Keturah knows that someone in the story is in love with her, even if it is debatable whether she loves him, and she uses the fact that he is in love with her to get out of him everything that she wants, again and again. Although it is true that if someone is in love with you, you do hold a sort of power over them, I think it is dispicable to abuse that power, so the fact that Keturah does, dims my opinion of her a great deal.

Overall, it's a really good story. It sucks you in, and keeps you guessing through out. I also think that Keturah is written as a powerful and proactive character. It's almost as if she lives her life as if she knows what the end result is going to be, which I felt made her seem almost otherworldly powerful, but my 2 issues with the book keep me from adding it to my favorites right now. ...less

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