Lowly’s Book Blog

When the Buzz editor handed me this book to read, I thought for a moment, ‘I know that author.’ But convinced I had never read anything of hers before, the book got added to the pile (which by the way is getting a little out of hand.)

The cover is dressed up like a murder mystery for adults. And when I sat down to actually start reading, that is what I thought I had in my hands. But it quickly became apparent that the main characters were two medieval young adults, of marriageble age then, but not considered so now. And the murder mystery rapidly deteriorated into romantic mush. Yes there are 5 murders but they are balanced by at least 3 romances, and somehow the enduring memory of the book is the romance.

The story is extremely unlikely. Supposedly a village in Italy has a convent and a monastery on the same property. A young aristocrat arrives at the monastery seeking sanctuary having been accused of a murder that he did not commit. At the same time a beautiful young woman is dumped by her brother in the convent simply because he cannot afford a dowry to see her married. These two novices, meet and become friends through their work in each establishment’s colour room. The colour room is where the monks and nuns mix colours for artist to use in the huge frescos often found in churches. Add to that a monk who finds his long lost love, and the widow of the first murdered man finding a new love, and you have the essence of this tale.

While surfing the net before writing this I discovered that The Falconer’s Knot is shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Book prize, an award similar to our own CBC Book of the Year. It is well written, and totally safe for young readers with no rude words or even intimate liaisons, but if this wins the award, it was a bad year for children’s lit in Great Britain.

Don’t get me wrong, the book was not unbearably bad. It was just mildly interesting and I believe that children deserve better.