A Review of Under the Poppy, by Kathe Koja

Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Under the Poppy won the 2011 Spectrum Award for Best Novel (given for positive GLBT content in speculative fiction), an award well deserved. Set in an alternate 19th-century Europe, in a brothel, and somewhere a train ride from Paris, with war imminent, this is the story of a love triangle. Decca, who is the co-owner of the brothel with Rupert, is in love with him. Rupert loves her brother, Istvan. When Istvan returns, with his puppet troupe, these old desires resurface, sharpened by the coming war. They prove as potent as ever, as they are influenced by these puppets who are more than they seem.

Richly drawn characters draw the reader the reader into a world that is at once familiar and at the same time, not our own. I must admit at first, based on the jacket which sets this novel in 1870s Brussels, that I was a bit misled--to the point I reviewed European history. The major war of the 1870s is the Franco-Prussian War, which passed by Brussels. Rather this war with its protagonists deliberately ambiguous, serves as the backdrop for machinations of love, the manipulations of hearts, the mysteries of desire.

Well done, well written, and worth the effort.



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