Publisher: Stony Mere Ltd
Publication Date: 8th September 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Summary:
Arriving in Córdoba as a young man in 1088 to learn medicine, Yehuda Halevi is enchanted by a world in which Muslim, Jewish and Christian courtiers share poetry and philosophy in their elegant gardens. Here he falls in love with Deborah, the spirited daughter of his host. In this turbulent world, however, Yehuda also encounters invasions and pirates, book burnings and bandits.
Driven by conflict to move from city to city, Yehuda and Deborah are often parted – but always in the hope that they will one day return together to Córdoba. As Yehuda’s fame grows as a poet and as a philosopher, his writings become increasingly mystical but also increasingly restless, for he yearns to travel to the holy city of Jerusalem. In 1140, as an old man, he must finally decide whether to stay with his family or begin the perilous voyage towards Egypt and Crusader Jerusalem…
In this beautifully evocative story, Robert L. Stone transports the reader to twelfth-century Andalucía as he traces the extraordinary life of a man determined to devote himself – and his exceptional talent – to a greater truth.
Review:
Firstly thank you to Random Things Book Tours and Robert L Stone for having me on this tour and for sending me a copy of the book to review.
As I've said before I do love historical fiction, especially well-researched historical fiction that's rooted in fact. This book has that in spades, it's quite clearly very well-researched and that shows. I loved the fact that we had the story of Yehuda Halevi and his life and love of Deborah and then behind it, we had all the changing political and religious environment that occurred in that time around what is now part of Spain. I know very little about that area of the world, especially in this time period (that which I know is sporadic and from the Not Just The Tudors podcast) so I really enjoyed learning about this time period through this book, and the descriptions were so vivid it was beautiful to read.
Now spattered throughout this book we have sections of poetry by Yehuda Halevi and they were really lovely to read, quite beautiful prose and I liked how they broke up the story a little. It was a really easy book to read and once I started I found I quite easily read big chunks in one go, it was nice to sit and devour it with a cuppa.
Now magpie that I am, obviously the look of the front cover is one of the things that drew me to this book along with its tagline. The cover has a really pretty tile-like pattern to it, I can imagine it as a floor in one of the buildings in Andalucia. The tagline "A poet finds love and fame in medieval Andalucia" well it just sounded like my cup of tea.
Krystina xx
Firstly thank you to Random Things Book Tours and Robert L Stone for having me on this tour and for sending me a copy of the book to review.
As I've said before I do love historical fiction, especially well-researched historical fiction that's rooted in fact. This book has that in spades, it's quite clearly very well-researched and that shows. I loved the fact that we had the story of Yehuda Halevi and his life and love of Deborah and then behind it, we had all the changing political and religious environment that occurred in that time around what is now part of Spain. I know very little about that area of the world, especially in this time period (that which I know is sporadic and from the Not Just The Tudors podcast) so I really enjoyed learning about this time period through this book, and the descriptions were so vivid it was beautiful to read.
Now spattered throughout this book we have sections of poetry by Yehuda Halevi and they were really lovely to read, quite beautiful prose and I liked how they broke up the story a little. It was a really easy book to read and once I started I found I quite easily read big chunks in one go, it was nice to sit and devour it with a cuppa.
Now magpie that I am, obviously the look of the front cover is one of the things that drew me to this book along with its tagline. The cover has a really pretty tile-like pattern to it, I can imagine it as a floor in one of the buildings in Andalucia. The tagline "A poet finds love and fame in medieval Andalucia" well it just sounded like my cup of tea.
Krystina xx
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