Ildefonso Falcones - The Barefoot Queen

1748, Seville: Caridad, a recently freed Cuban slave, wanders the streets of the city. Her master is dead and she has nowhere to go. When she meets Milagro Carmona - a young, rebellious gypsy - the two women are instantly inseparable. Milagros introduces Caridad to the gypsy community, an exotic fringe society that will soon bring them love and change their life forever.
From the tumultuous bustle of 18th-century Seville to the theatres of Madrid, THE BAREFOOT QUEEN takes us into the murky world of tobacco smuggling and ther persecution of the gypsies.

Comment: This is another of the books I borrowed in Portuguese, owned by the friend that kindly lets me read some books more historical fiction oriented than what I usually look for but that fill some of my tastes here and there.

In this book we find the story of Caridad, a young negro woman from Cuba that has recently won her freedom when her master died in the ship to Spain. Now Caridad is alone, is taken advantage of but she finds friends and a new world where she feels inadequate. The new friends become family and Caridad finds a purpose.

Her new existence gets more focus when she meets Milagros and her gypsy family but everything changes when gypsies are persecuted by the Crown. Can Milagros live up to her potential? Can Caridad finally find peace?

This is the second book by this author that I read and I have to say this one isn't as interesting, as well executed or easy to want to read as the other, the Hand of Fatima.

This book lacks all the amazing developments and captivating characters I've met in the other book which made me very eager to read more and more. With this book I was more interested in finishing each page as quickly as possible so I could finally out the book aside.

I think part of my lack of interest is the plot itself. The gypsy theme isn't much about traditions or "rules" but more about who they were and how they felt they were superior to everyone else. But for the most part, the attitudes described in the book only showed cocky, aggressive and arrogant characters that we could easily see in any other book about any type of character.They kept saying they were special but nothing ever seemed particularly interesting about them as a group. The characters whose focus we saw weren't that appealing and I struggled to have any sort of interest in them.

Then there's Caridad...I liked the first chapters where we meet her, because her life was hard and I assumed she would find some sort of happiness in Spain...we are told she does but nothing I read makes me see that, in fact she was a handy character to add the smuggling tobacco theme into the story and why would she be important to the gypsies that helped her and about whom she eventually came to care about. I felt a chance was missed to portray a strong character with some message to tell us no matter what, we can endure and become better people and find happiness. But poor Caridad was used from the time she put a foot in Spain until the end, one way or another.

The fact the two main characters, former slave Caridad and gypsy young Milagros, have had such a though and awful life isn't what bothers me but in the end I don't feel they overcame their difficulties. Yes, they got some peace at the end but... if the point was to give us a realistic image of what life used to be there, a scientific non fictional story would have worked.

This "romance" has many usual ingredients to make t fascinating but I didn't care much about anything.

The writing isn't bad and we can not only see how the author has put an effort to present a realistic image of the Spain in the 18th century but also provides many little details that give strength to his knowledge and ideas. But the story, the plot isn't captivating! Too many bad things happen, to many distracting changes of focus throughout the story made me loose the little interest I had in some of the things I was reading about.

I think the book might appeal to hardcore historical fiction readers but to me it needs to have some sort of positive detail to be memorable, to make me feel glad I read something about people that won something over adversity. But this story always made me feel bad for women, for innocents, for the ones that suffered and where justice never happened. All this might be close to reality but then why read a romance in the first place if not to wish for something better to happen? I've finished the book feeling so sorry for Milagros and Caridad and how terrible women's lives were at that time. It's very depressing.

In the end, this wasn't magical like the other book I've read by the author because despite the little positive elements, the whole story didn't win me over.

I've finished but don't keep many enjoyable moments of it.

Grade: 3/10

Ildefonso Falcones - The Hand of Fatima

Snared between two cultures and two loves, one man is forced to choose...
1564, the Kingdom of Granada. After years of Christian oppression, the Moors take arms and daub the white houses of Sierra Nevada with the blood of their victims.
Amidst the conflict is young Hernando , the son of an Arab woman and the Christian priest who raped her. He is despised and regularly beaten by his own step-father for his 'tainted' heritage.
Fuelled with the love of the beautiful Fatima, Hernando hatches a plan to unite the two warring faiths - and the two halves of his identity...

Comment: This is another book I borrowed from a friend who likes historical fiction a lot. She knows I like many genres so she suggested this title which presents the Muslim/Christan fights and persecutions in Spain, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This is the story of Hernando, he's a Muslim whose father was a Christian priest who raped his mother. The setting is Spain, late 16th century and around the time the king gave the order to expel all Muslims from the country. Hernando is a young boy when the book starts and we follow his life and all the challenges that he must overcome just by being in the middle of two religions. Hernando has many good moments, but also tremendous bad times that affect himself and those he swears to protect.

Always with the utopic goal of uniting two religious under the same God, Hernando lives the live of a Muslim, tries to honor the Christian ruling of the time and is living a hard life but always keeping the faith of his ancestors.

I liked this story. The book is huge, more than 900 pages which means a lot of detail.

The most obvious thing that pops up is the amount of detail the author inserted in this story. His research was deep and exhaustive and shows the amount of time he certainly dedicated to setting up the writing of this book, plus the time to actually write it.

This effort alone should be recognized, but the truth is, his work is well structured as well.

This book is a work of fiction for the most part. But there are countless historical facts as the basis for this novel and the characters show how it was to live in those times and even more, how apart the faith was for the different religions.

Something that nowadays still happens, which only shows to prove that no matter how long time passes by, things et in stone take a long time to change, to improve, to be understood.

The fictional part of the story is divided into four parts, focusing on how Hernando lives his live honoring his Muslim faith, how he falls in love and tries to live respecting that, how he wants to honor his faith and those of his peers and finally the wishes of God, which he believes everyone should know it's the same for Muslims and Christians.

Hernando is the key character in this book and his actions, his faith, his behavior and attempt of honoring those he respects and cares about shape this book and start off many of the decisive action scenes which will be the starting point of many things.

Many scenes are hard to accept. There wasn't the acceptance of nowadays - which is still so low and xenophobic - and the killing of people based on faith alone is a hard hit against humanity. But in the end people make choices and in a time where here wasn't no newspapers spreading the word, where there wasn't no Internet showing things second by second, fear and prejudice and power plays were easier to hide and to execute. Although part of History, some things, killing children, condemning people to death, making people do despicable things, are hard to swallow. This book doesn't hide from that and I confess some parts were hard to read about. Still, I don't think it was the most graphic book I've read pertaining historical fiction.

The fictional parts about Hernando also have happy times. In the end, all people everywhere want the same things, happiness, a good life for their children, the chance to live a live they can be proud of...Hernando has all this, as he has awful experiences to deal with, to live through. His character is who gets us, the reader, closer to what reality must have been for so many nameless people from so long ago. But that reality is here shown in all its harsh details.

Hernando ends up with a HEA but in these types of books HEAs aren't sugary and pink like in other books. His path to a quieter life had its highs and it's lows and some of the bad things made me sad and shed a tear here and there. I think this is a book to read with a heavy heart.

The writing is easy, the story flows despite its length but I admit there are many pages with descriptions and political settings that I didn't care much about and I didn't pay the attention is should. But 900 pages is a lot so despite most of the information  remains, there's a lot of it that just doesn't grab you the same way. Some parts felt boring, yes.

Still, despite the flaws and the boring parts, I wished Hernando's HEA were better. There's one thing he wants throughout the whole book and when he has finally the time to live it, life isn't as easy as that. It felt almost bittersweet. There are also some misunderstandings that affect some happenings which I get from plot needs, but it's annoying to see it. In real life this happens too, and it certainly happening int he 16th century as well, but in fiction we also want things to happen better.

This historical fiction story is rich in details, scenes and History. It's a lesson so obvious, why don't we learn from the mistakes of yesterday, but here it it, human flaws and behavior. Even seeing how wrong we can be, we still don't respect others. We all want to be the ones who know best, who should be entitled to know more, to have more power over others. How sad, how contemporary still.

Grade: 7/10