Holy Fools
by Joanne Harris
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joanne HarrisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-04-26
ISBN: 0060559136
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Holy Fools
Book Review: "The past is a sly sickness."
Summary: 5 Stars
Circa 1610, the rocky shore of Brittany houses the dilapidated abbey of Saine-Marie-de-la-Mer, the nuns having made restive peace with their uncompromising land, barely eking out their meager sustenance. One of the newer sisters, Soeur Auguste, lives quietly at the abbey with her five-year-old daughter, Fleur. Formerly known as Juliette, a player with a gypsy caravan of traveling performers, Soeur Auguste has sought respite from the world at large in the harsh confines of the hardscrabble convent life, content to toil side by side with the sisters, who have all come to this place with reasons of their own, from the beautiful Clemente to the religious hysteric, Marguerite, and Soeur Antoine, an overweight baker who assuages her personal sorrows with gluttony. The relative contentment of the abbey changes suddenly with the death of its ancient Reverend Mother and the installation of a new abbess, a mere child of thirteen, Angelique Sainte-Herve Desiree Arnault, Mere Isabelle ("that dreadful little girl").
Accompanying the spoiled and arrogant Mere Isabelle is Pere Colombin, a Reform priest with an agenda of his own, "for all those to whom he has fed the pieces of his bitter heart". It is only Soeur Auguste who recognizes the charismatic priest as her lover from the past, the deliberate and coldly-efficient Guy LeMerle who left her to languish with the traveling troupe when they fell afoul of the law. Whatever LeMerle's reason for disguising himself as a man of God at Saint-Marie-de-la-Mer, Soeur Auguste knows his arrival portends danger for her and her child: "Our time in the sunlight had finally come to an end." As Mere Isabelle begins a rigid reformation of the daily religious practices of the nuns, Pere Colombin dissembles in ever more mysterious ways, banking the embers of hysteria with exquisite exactitude, biding his time until the moment of perfection, carefully orchestrating a subtle power struggle with Mere Isabelle, his little pawn betraying a brittle intelligence, rising up to challenge his authority.
Whatever LeMerle's goal, Mere Isabelle and the nuns are putty in the hands of the master, who has devised a grand revenge on them all. Because Guy has kidnapped Fleur to ensure her silence, Juliette balances her appeasement of the false priest with clandestine attempts to uncover and derail his terrible plans, a contretemps between the seducer and the seduced, Juliette conflicted by a mixed feelings for her former lover. For all her cleverness, Juliette is no match for his inherent dishonesty, but he underestimates the strength of her commitment to recovering Fleur, thereby denying him a last triumph. In a grand finale that exposes the desperate fervor of religious hysterics with a lifelong quest for recognition, a battle is waged between God and the Devil, the abbey ablaze with the reckoning of good and evil. Luan Gaines/2007.
Summary of Holy Fools
Joanne Harris, bestselling author of Chocolat, presents her most accomplished novel yet -- an intoxicating concoction that blends theology and reason, deception and masquerade, with a dash of whimsical humor and a soupçon of sensuality.
Britanny, 1610. Juliette, a one-time actress and rope dancer, is forced to seek refuge among the sisters of the abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. Reinventing herself as Soeur Auguste, Juliette makes a new life for herself and her young daughter, Fleur.
But when the kindly abbess dies, Juliette's comfortable existence begins to unravel. The abbey's new leader is the daughter of a corrupt noble family, and she arrives with a ghost from Juliette's past -- Guy LeMerle, a man she has every reason to fear and hate.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.Historical Books
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