The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier is an adult fictional novel with a historical feel.
Present and past collide when Ella Turner moves to France with her husband and begins having blue dreams. When Ella moved to France, she hoped to find a place and begin a family. But small town life and the French in general, don’t seem to agree with her. She feels out of place and watched; she no longer feels like herself. And worst of all are the dreams. Dreams, she soon learns, may be connected with her families past.
Isabelle du Moulin, 400 years earlier, lives a different sort of small town life. Persecuted because of her red hair and her love for the Virgin Mother, Isabelle finds herself constantly watched and judged. Superstition and fear guide this time period and that in itself can be dangerous.
What do Ella and Isabelle have in common? Secrets will be revealed and revelations made.
This is the book that was chosen for my next social book club. I will admit, I was kind of indifferent to it when picked, but I joined the book club to socialize and read outside of my comfort zone, so I gave it a try. This book was beautifully structured. The way the chapters go back an forth to reveal bits and pieces of the truth, was wonderful. The story itself didn’t wow me, it was good but that’s about it. But the trail the reader had to follow to get to the end was interesting.
I wasn’t so much into Ella’s character. I thought she could have been a little stronger. She had moments, I’ll give her that, but overall she needed something that I just can’t put my finger on. Isabelle was better and Jacob was really interesting. I really loved his cliff hanger at the end.
Another gripe I have was the French. If I was a more studious reader, I would have looked up the French and the book would have probably had a lot more meaning for me. But reading in bed or on my lunch, mehhhh. I would have liked to know what was being said sometimes, specifically instead of just inferred.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I breezed through it. It’ll be interesting to see what the rest of my book club has to say about it. This one gets 3 stars from me.
That’s all for now!
-M-