Reviews

For more reviews and updates please see Melodie’s website at www.melodiewinawer.com

Booklist – April 15, 2017
“An engrossing historical epic. Winawer’s wide-ranging, romantic story moves apace, yet it has considerable meat on its structural bones, with plentiful details on fourteenth-century Sienese daily life, customs, art, and travel.”

Starred Publishers Weekly – March 3, 2017
“…The novel dramatically brings to life a period in Siena’s history that is still overwhelmingly neglected by historians—it is still unclear why Siena was ravaged by the plague in ways unseen in other Italian cities. Winawer has created a prodigious, vibrant tale of past and present that transports readers and fills in the historical gaps. This is a marvelous work of research and invention…”

Starred Library Journal – February 6, 2017
“…This mixture of history, time travel, and romance with its hint of mystery will remind historical fiction readers of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and Tracy Chevalier’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Sf fans will recall Connie Willis’s The Doomsday Book. Lovers of meticulously researched historical fiction and time-travel narratives will be swept away by the spell of medieval Siena…”