Saints and sinners

[bibliogramma]

A Mortal Glamour, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

In A Mortal Glamour, Yarbro turns her not inconsiderable talents at researching and writing historical fantasy to a story of sexual tensions and repressed longings – for love, for freedom – and their consequences in the tightly controlled environment of a Catholic convent during a time of social and religious unrest.

It is the 14th century, the time of the Avignon popes, when Catholicism was split between two competing political factions within the Church. Plague is abroad in Europe. Groups of wandering, often violent adherents of assorted heresies have created an internal threat, while the Eastern borders of Europe are once again facing invasion, driven by the migratory pressures that have periodically pushed new populations westward out of Central Asia.

Trouble is brewing in a remote French convent, la Tres Saunte Annunciation. A young nun, Seur Angelique, child of a wealthy family, in love with an unsuitable young man, rages against the unyielding father who has given her an ultimatum – marry an older man she fears and despises for dynastic reasons, or face permanent incarceration in this community of religious women, many of whom are not themselves in possession of a true vocation. Into this unstable set of circumstances comes a new Mother Superior, who may not be exactly what she seems.

Yarbro has written a fascinating account of the consequences of mixing religious hysteria with sexual repression, and if, in this work of fantasy, she gives a supernatural flavour to the proximate cause of the events she recounts, the underlying causes are clearly delineated.

Fascinating reading.