Then there’s the church - Spike is clearly a fervent adherent of the Catholic Church. And while some of the glowing references to the modern-day church were enough to make me nauseous, those could be ignored. Where it does really matter is in going soft on the church of Matilda’s time - Spike skips quickly and carefully over the corruption, the murders, the violence - not whitewashing exactly, but not presenting the reader with a full picture.
And finally there’s the writing. Sadly, this is a story that never quite comes alive on the page: the reader can let their imagination soar with Matilda’s story, but a clunking adjective, or the painfully described “treading in Matilda’s footsteps” around Italy and German, will soon get in the way.
But still, my advice is simple: ignore all of that, for this is a story - a herstory - that every woman should know. (And man too, for that matter, particularly perhaps Catholic priests who think of the church as a man’s institution.) And this is, for the moment, is how you’re going to get into Matilda’s story. But a note to any directors out there: this is a story that would make a great movie… an epic tale of derring do, intrigue and romance - great actresses would be beating down your doors to play Matilda.
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