Year of Wonders in Aussie Readers

Apr 14, 2010 Gaynor rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, somerton

A fascinating book about a plague in a village in Britain; which also touches on feminism, mining and ends by hinting at the contribution of Islamic scholars to the study of medicine. When reading this I had just read several other titles from the same era, and was interested to note that a woman who has a knowledge of herbal medicine or who is called upon to help with births (midwife?), can easily be misjudged and is often accused of witchcraft.
It was not unusual for people from the British Is ...more

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Dec 08, 2009 Laura rated it really liked it

The Great Plague of 1665 devastated a small village in Derbyshire known as Eyam; Based part on actual events, Brooks takes us back in time, describing everyday life in Eyam; the various families, culture, mining, superstitions, midwifery and religious belief in order to develop her story and the depth of it’s characters.

Anna Frith is the narrator of the story, a widow who lost her husband to a mining accident, left to raise her two small sons alone. After taking in a stranger who comes to the v The Great Plague of 1665 devastated a small village in Derbyshire known as Eyam; Based part on actual events, Brooks takes us back in time, describing everyday life in Eyam; the various families, culture, mining, superstitions, midwifery and religious belief in order to develop her story and the depth of it’s characters.

Anna Frith is the narrator of the story, a widow who lost her husband to a mining accident, left to raise her two small sons alone. After taking in a stranger who comes to the village in need of lodging, Anna finds herself falling in love with the stranger who dotes on her children like his own; on his death bed he instructs Anna to “burn it all”. Highlighting the ignorance of the medical world during the 17th Century, the village is unaware that they are on the verge of a pandemic; The Black Death. The disease runs rife throughout the village, killing young and old, healthy and sick in the hundreds. After loosing her two young children to the plague, Anna plunges her heart and soul into working with the local rector and his wife to aid the sick picking up where the local herbalist/midwife left off. Elinor, the rector’s wife, encourages Anna to read anything she chooses to from their library, both firmly believe that the ‘answer to their problems’ lay in one of the Latinised medical texts.

After Anna’s confidant, Elinor, is murdered by her frenzied step mother, on a spur of the moment decision Anna finds comfort in the arms of the rector. Seeing her own mistakes and deciding that although she is fond of the rector acknowledges that she can not live in the footsteps of Elinor and is devastated to learn that the rector’s marriage was more convenience than out of love, Anna feeling betrayed on behalf of her friend. Anna learns to trust her own intuition, and by a chance turn of events, flees Eyam to start her life over with a bastard child she saved from drowning; fearing the family who attempted to kill the child will change their mind and pursue her, by chance she boards a ship bound for the Mediterranean, upon arrival seeks out and joins an Arabian man who herald’s Anna’s intelligence and joins his harem in order for his protection lives in harmony with her two daughters.

This is a beautifully written story vividly describing The Great Plague of 1665; anyone who is mildly interested in everyday life during the 17th Century, the plague and it’s consequences, will thoroughly enjoy reading this novel.
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Feb 18, 2013 Kathryn rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, australian-authors

I loved this until about just over 30 pages from the end. At first I was slightly disappointed by something that seemed out of character and then I was completely flabbergasted by a revelation that was so totally out of character that it made me feel like I had just entered the twilight zone with the book!! Or maybe the author felt like she'd written herself into a corner and she couldn't see anyway out other than the one she took - but it was so unbelievable that it was almost as if the wrong p ...more

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Oct 10, 2020 Belinda rated it really liked it

Considering I read the bulk of this while I was in hospital, impaled on a knitting needle, full of morphine, in the year of our lord 2020, I think I empathised pretty well with Anna and Eyams. It didn’t go the way I thought it would, but I didn’t get the bait and switch feeling that other readers did. It all seemed very relatable while wearing a mask, in a hospital bed, during a pandemic. Perhaps 2020 will be seen as a year of wonders in 300 years. We can only hope.

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Apr 02, 2014 Ace Taylor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, real-life, relationship, historical, talking-books, european-history, religion, englands-history, books-i-own

That sucked me in so much and it was amazing. Of course Geraldine who was reading the talking book - her voice was amazing and just drew me in to it so much that I once forgot to pay attention to where I was driving! (Ended up in a turning lane because it turned from one into two and I went WHERE AM I - I was on the right road but you know...) Absolutely amazing.

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Jan 10, 2010 Kathy Huynh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: absolute-favourites, historical-fiction, bleak-and-beautiful

In my teens I read this book three times. I still can't write a review. It's hard when I don't think I can capture how this book made me feel. The profoundness of this literary novel hit me like a lightning bolt... but with more subtlety. Okay I'll come back to this. Still struggling to articulate myself. ...more

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