Black Damask [Kindle Edition]

I read this brilliant book in two days flat. I couldn't put it down. It's main characters are two sisters, one of whom, Annabelle, is the seventh child of a seventh child and has the consequent supernatural powers. She uses them to great effect and, praying to the Devil for support, manages to kill those who seriously cross her. The setting is the late Tudor to early Elizabethan period and the tale benefits from the religious turmoil in the England of that time. Anna Rossi is the master of the history and uses it to great effect in staging this complex, fast moving drama. At first, I thought I would have difficulty with the main characters, and another, each using the first person. I was wrong. The recipe works wonders and gives the story a striking immediacy. Thankfully, it is the past tense (I have trouble with historical novels written in the present) and that made it easier. I loved the interactions between the colourfully rich characters and the surprises that confronted them (and me) as the story develops. Anna Rossi kept the plot boiling right to the last page, so demonstrating the commitent and energy of a top class novelist. I don't usually embrace the supernatural but I shall read this one again. And other works of Anna Rossi.

I've thoroughly enjoyed this book. The scene is set quickly and the reader is drawn into the story from the first few pages. Ms Rossi's style of writing is uncluttered but she depicts scenes of incredible richness and vitality. The same is true of her characters, all of whom are well rounded and lifelike. The plot is built around a lot of fact (day to day life and death, religious and social posturing depending on who was monarch and suspicions of witchcraft). Queens Mary and Elizabeth are incidental to this story but the detail around contemporary life and events makes for a plausible plot and characters. I enjoyed the narrative device of switching between the main protagonists to move the plot forward. The perspective was different but complementary and it works extremely well. There are occasions where the reader is willing for a letter to be opened or for a discovery to be made so that disaster will be averted. A rewarding and highly enjoyable read right to the end.

A good book is one that you don't want to put down, and which you miss and mourn when you have finished reading it - that is Black Damask.
Hilary Mantel, eat your heart out, for here is a writer of historical fiction every bit as secure in her knowledge of the period, and who has created a fantastic and fanciful story laced with supernatural powers.
Annabelle and Margaret are two sisters, one plain, one pretty, whose lives are entwined by marriages, children, and the dark deeds of two men who weave evil power and influence over both sisters throughout their lives. The story is cleverly told in two distinct voices - that of each the sisters, so that the reader gets a different perspective, not only of events as they happen, but of thoughts and motives. This enables the author to slip backstory and context seamlessly into the text.
Life is cheap in the sixteenth century, and death is commonplace. The sisters lose both parents to the executioner, and tragic deaths occur throughout the book. Most authors of fiction set in this period try to sanitise it, and introduce twentieth century constructs so as to protect the sensitivities of the modern-day reader - not Anna Rossi. She tells it as it is, and includes romance, passion, adultery, sexual deviation, incest, murder, torture, witchcraft, treason, and even a devil-child, in her story. Both sisters become sexually active before their teens, and both are child brides, seeing off a series of husbands, and having many children.
This is an action-packed treasure-chest of a story, and I can't recommend it too strongly