Book Review: Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt

2012 Finalist International Book Awards for Historical Fiction

 The novel, Rocamora, gives an account of Vicente de Rocamora's life in the 17th century Spanish court as a Dominican priest and confessor to the Spanish Infanta, as a priest who rose to such fame that he almost became Inquisitor General of Spain. It is fascinating because of the historical background. The book details the atmosphere of fear, ambition, political greed, and the obsession of "purifying"  Spain during this time, to rid itself of not only Jews, Moors, and others not of "pure blood." Many were expelled from Spain in the 15th century and many others chose to leave the country over time unless they had decided to convert and become "New Christians". Anyone declared a heretic as well as anyone deemed to be homosexual, bigamist, blasphemer or other were subject to the auto de fe, a public penance and sentencing that could result in burning at the stake.

Vicente de Rocamora in this novel is based on a real person in 17th century Spain,  a poet whose works did not survive. He had family members in the Dominican order of priests, became a Dominican himself and served in the Spanish court, but later in life, after learning he was part Jewish and not one of the"pure bloods" in Spain, changed his name to Isaac, moved to the Netherlands, and became a physician.

Rich historical detail and atmosphere is the background tapestry for the story of Vicente rising to power in the Spanish Court, an ambition that gave honor and fame to the family name. I enjoyed reading the novel though it does take time to read to absorb the detailed information. I highly recommended the novel for those interested in the religious atmosphere of Spain during this time.

In an historical novel, I always want to know what's fiction and what is historical fact. It's helpful that the author has asterisks marking the fictional characters in his list of important people in Rocamora. He also has a map of Spain and Portugal in the 17th century and historical notes at the beginning and at the end of the novel.

Book description: "Rocamora, a novel of 17th century Spain, is based on the life of Vicente de Rocamora, who struggles to make his place in a Spain obsessed with limpieza de sangre, purity of blood untainted by Jew, Moor, or recent convert.

Poet, swordsman, and master of disguise, at the insistence of his family, Vicente enters the Dominican Order and is soon thrust into the scheming political and clerical hierarchies that at Court. Vicente becomes Confessor and Spiritual Director for King Philip IV’s teenage sister, the beautiful Infanta Doña María, five years younger than he, protégé and possible successor of Inquisitor General Sotomayor, and an invaluable assistant to the King’s chief minister, the Count-Duke de Olivares.

Vicente needs all his skills and cunning to survive assassination by a growing list of ruthless foes in both Church and Court, solve a centuries-old riddle to quell rumors of his own impurity of blood, and above all suppress his love for the seemingly unattainable María."

Title: Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt
Published September 26, 2011; Raven’s Wings Books
Genre: historical novel
Source: review book provided. For other book reviews, visit Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours


Donald Michael Platt's novel, ROCAMORA, set in 17th century Spain and Amsterdam during their Golden Ages, was released December 2008 and republished September 2011. The sequel HOUSE OF ROCAMORA was published November 2012. He is working on a novel set in the 9th century Carolingian Empire about another unusual historical character, Bodo, the Apostate. Please visit his Webpage for more information. 

Dancing to the Flute by Manisha Julie Amin:

 Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB; choose sentences from your current read and identify author and title for readers. First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea. Opening sentences in a book can help readers decide if the book is one they would continue reading.

Opening sentences: "Kalu stood still, staring up in to the banyan tree, oblivious to the sounds around him or to the man resting against one of the tree's many trunks. Finally, spotting the perfect leaf, the boy began to climb."

Book description: “'Kalu picked up the flute by his side and started to play. The sound was deep and full, as if he were translating his thoughts into music.' 

Abandoned as a young child, Kalu, a cheeky street kid, has carved out a life for himself in the village of Hastinapore, India. Kalu has also found friends: Bal, the solitary boy who tends the local buffaloes, and Malti, a gentle servant girl, who with her mistress, Ganga Ba, has watched over Kalu since he first wandered into the small town.

 One day, perched high in the branches of a banyan tree, Kalu chooses a leaf, rolls it tightly, and as he’s done for as long as he can remember, blows through it. His pure, simple notes dance through the air and attract a traveling healer, whose interest will change Kalu’s life forever.

 Dancing to the Flute is a heartwarming story of a community, the transforming powers of music, the many faces of friendship, and a boy’s journey to become a man."

Title: Dancing to the Flute: A Novel  by Manisha Jolie Amin
Published February 5, 2013; Atria
Genre: literary novel

Sunday Salon: Welcome Spring and New Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Also submitted to Mari Reads for Mailbox Monday.

 Hope you are enjoying spring-like weather today, wherever you are!

I was lucky to win two ARCs from Random House Publishing. Here are the book descriptions:

Five Star Billionaire: A Novel by Tash Aw
Tash Aw charts the overlapping lives of migrant Malaysian workers, forging lives for themselves in sprawling Shanghai.

Blood and Beauty: The Borgias, a Novel by Sarah Dunant
A powerhouse of the Italian Renaissance, their very name epitomizes the ruthless politics and corruption of the Papacy. An epic novel which sets out to capture the scope, the detail, the depth, the colour and the complexity of this fascinating family.

I'm reading a lot of historical novels right now, so I'm looking forward to finding out more about the Borgias.  And the new wealthy in China are a hot topic, so a novel featuring the new Shanghai will be interesting. Publication dates for these books will be in July 2013.

I seem to have about seven books to review in the next month for book tours! April will be the busiest month! What was I thinking? But then I chose books that I really thought would be interesting. And they are!

Enjoy your day!

The Making of Us by Lisa Jewell

Friday 56 Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.

Robyn Inglis celebrated her eighteenth birthday with a Voltz energy shot and the morning-after pill. The night before she'd still been seventeen, but she wasn't having her birthday party on a Sunday night, no way. Besides it had been half legal, the party hadn't started 'til nine o'clock, she'd turned eighteen at midnight, the last four hours she'd been partying as a proper bona fide paid-up member of the adult population, thank you very much. (p. 57)

About the book: "Three strangers are brought together by the father they never knew. Lydia, Dean and Robyn don’t know one another. Yet. Lydia is wealthy and successful, but lonely. Dean is a young, unemployed, single dad. Robyn is eighteen, gorgeous and intelligent, but she’s failing her classes and falling in love for the first time. Three people leading three very different lives. All lost. All looking for something. But when they slowly find their way into each other's lives, everything starts to change ..

What they don’t know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It is a letter containing a secret—one that will bind them together and show what love and family and friendship really mean." (publisher)

Title: The Making of Us: A Novel by Lisa Jewell
Published August 14, 2012; Atria
Genre: contemporary fiction
Source: publisher

Book Review: WHEN MAIDENS MOURN by C.S. Harris

Looking up, he said, " Do you know where Miss Tennyson planned to take her young cousins yesterday?"
The nursemaid shook her had. "No. She told them it was a surprise."
"Could she perhaps have intended to show them the excavations at Camlet Moat?" (ch. 9)

About the book: Regency England, August 1812. When Gabrielle Tennyson is murdered, aristocratic investigator Sebastian St. Cyr and his new reluctant bride, the fiercely independent Hero Jarvis, find themselves involved in an intrigue concerning the myth of King Arthur, Camelot, and a future poet laureate...

Comments: A young woman is found stabbed and left in a boat at Camlet Moat outside of London. She was known for her ongoing research on a site some claimed as the original Camelot, and investigator Sebastian St. Cyr thinks her death may be connected to her work. The two young cousins who were with her that day are missing.

Recommendations: This is the first of the eight Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries that I've read. It's the seventh in a series. What ties the books together is the ongoing life of St. Cyr - his distant father, questions relating to his parentage, his love affair with an actress, and his marriage to Hero, the daughter of a prominent and influential member of government. Hero and St. Cyr work together on this mystery as the dead woman Gabrielle was a close friend of Hero's.

Excellent read. I am eager to read the next in the series, which is already out - What Darkness Brings.

Title: When Maidens Mourn: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris
Published March 5, 2013; Signet paperback
Genre: historical mystery
Source: review copy from the publisher

Book Review: The Missing File by D.A. Mishani

A sixteen-year-old boy, Oleg, disappears on his way to school in Tel Aviv and Inspector Avraham Avraham has to determine if he is a runaway or was kidnapped. Oleg's father was out of the country at the time and the boy's mother reports him missing. Oleg's had his backpack with him, though he left his cell phone behind. Zeev Avni,  an enigmatic neighbor, claims detailed knowledge of the boy as he had been his after-school English tutor, and he pursues Avraham with information he says he has. Zeev immediately comes into our cross hairs as someone who could be a suspect in the boy's disappearance.

The book is suspenseful and there are twists and turns in the case up to the last few  pages.  Apart from the tantalizing plot, there is the character and personality of Inspector Avraham, a very likable though not the most astute member of the investigating team. But that's part of his charm. He lives alone but at the end of the book, finds a love interest on a trip abroad whom he has to leave to return to Israel. The author assures us this is not the end of things for Avraham, however.

The first in the Inspector Avraham detective series is very promising. I am eager to read the next in the series.

Title: The Missing File: A Novel by D. A. Mishani
Release date: April 16, 2013; Harper
Genre: mystery, police procedural

D. A. Mishani is the editor of Israeli fiction and crime literature at Keter Books in Israel and is a literary scholar specializing in the history of detective literature. The Missing File is his first novel and the first in a series featuring the police inspector Avraham Avraham. Connect with Mishani on Facebook and find him on Goodreads.

Visit The Missing File book tour schedule for more reviews.
Review book received through TLC Book Tours.

Linked to Cym Lowell's Book Review Wednesday.

Mailbox Monday: Books and Proofs

Visit Mailbox Monday at host Chaotic Compendiums this week.

Here's what arrived last week:

Daddy's Gone A Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark:
A dark secret threatens two sisters when the family-owned furniture firm explodes into flames.

The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power, and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance 1427-1527 by Leonie Frieda
An epic tale of eight famous women.


and some Uncorrected Proofs:

Making It by Helen Klein Ross
Contemporary advertising shenanigans as experienced by a bread-winning mom

Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay
Three artists have their fates irrevocably interlaced.

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro
The obsessive love between muse and artist, the power of memory and scent.

The Barbed Crown: An Ethan Gage Adventure by William Dietrich
Adventurer Ethan Gage plots revenge on Napoleon Bonaparte for the kidnap of his son.


What books arrived in your mailbox recently?