Great Storytelling and A Thought Provoking Read!
I imagined something completely different when I got this book. It turns out that I was more enthralled with what actually happened instead of what I thought would happen.
Seraphina was captured from her home and made to become a princess to appease the mad king. A Jew living among gentiles, she has learned to hide her true self. The mori roja ravaged everyone in its path. There are two groups of people - immaculates and immunes. In a castle full of royalty, the plague is all but ignored. They stay inside the stone walls even as their supplies deplete.
Nico was a young man when the plague came through. Interested in medicine but forced to dig graves for those affected by the mori roja, he works day after day for Lord Crane, hoping to find signs of life anywhere. He and his "coworkers" set out to find survivors at the insistence of Lord Crane.
The storytelling in the book is phenomenal. It was easy to follow while also being thought provoking. Rutherford shows the clear rift between Jews and gentiles, immaculates and immunes, those with power and those without power. She shows how prejudice and bias play a role in a fantasy world and our world.
I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have read and reviewed this book!
Seraphina was captured from her home and made to become a princess to appease the mad king. A Jew living among gentiles, she has learned to hide her true self. The mori roja ravaged everyone in its path. There are two groups of people - immaculates and immunes. In a castle full of royalty, the plague is all but ignored. They stay inside the stone walls even as their supplies deplete.
Nico was a young man when the plague came through. Interested in medicine but forced to dig graves for those affected by the mori roja, he works day after day for Lord Crane, hoping to find signs of life anywhere. He and his "coworkers" set out to find survivors at the insistence of Lord Crane.
The storytelling in the book is phenomenal. It was easy to follow while also being thought provoking. Rutherford shows the clear rift between Jews and gentiles, immaculates and immunes, those with power and those without power. She shows how prejudice and bias play a role in a fantasy world and our world.
I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have read and reviewed this book!