The Book of Days by Francesca Kay (Review)

The Book of Days by Francesca Kay

Blurb

Things change; we have to recognise that; the world will not stay still. What we must hope is that the new is better and stronger than the old. Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul. As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. And as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom. The Book of Days is a beautifully written novel of lives lived in troubled times and the solace to be found in nature and the turning seasons.

Review

This is my first book by Francesca Kay and I will be honest I really didn’t gel with the book for the first half and almost gave up several times. I loved the imagery used in the book and the detailed descriptions of the scenery and different seasons but I found the book lacked direction and spent a lot of time meandering around and not really going anywhere.

Alice is a character who is basically lost which seems strange because her world is so small and isolated. She is desperate for children but she is married to a much older man who is dying and she is trapped on her husband’s estate with no possibility of adventure. When Alice escapes the sick room of her husband she explores the grounds and also spends a lot of time seeing all the improvements taking place on the chapel. The chapel is her husband’s obsession and his plan is to one day be laid to rest in a grand tomb and have prayers said everyday for his soul. It is clear Alice’s husband is worried about his immortal soul but we don’t know why. However, the outside world is about to encroach on Alice’s small and sheltered world and it is not going to go well and her husband’s plan for his immortal soul might not be going according to his wishes. The way people worship and use their churches is about to change and the change will not be gentle.

There were so many times in this book that I wanted to shake Alice. She is such a gentle soul but her step daughter Agnes is clearly trouble and clearly in need of a firm hand which nobody seems willing to give and to me Alice should have been that firm hand and also put her foot down to how Agnes treated her. Alice just wants to be friends with everyone and nice to everyone and sometimes that just means you get walked over and this happens to poor Alice.

The thing that saved this book for me was the detail and imagery because the characters and lack of direction really put me off at times. I also didn’t enjoy the latin snippets in the book because I found they detracted from the flow of the text and didn’t really add anything. I give this book 3 out of 5 Dragons.

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About the author

Francesca Kay’s first novel, An Equal Stillness, won the Orange Award for New Writers in 2009. She lives in Oxford with her family.