Bitter Greens

Bitter Greens

By Kate Forsyth
Unabridged
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“Kate Forsyth’s Bitter Greens is an enthralling concoction of history and magic, an absorbing, richly detailed, and heart-wrenching reimagining of a timeless fairy tale.”

Jennifer Chiaverini, New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Rival

From internationally bestselling author Kate Forsyth comes a historical novel that gorgeously interweaves the Rapunzel fairy tale with the true life story of French novelist Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force.

Charlotte-Rose has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sister Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, was sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens.

After Margherita's father steals from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off unless he and his wife give away their little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. Selena is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.

Locked away in a tower, Margherita sings in the hope that someone will hear her. One day, a young man does.

This sumptuous novel holds the stories of three women, braided together to create a compelling tale of desire, black magic, and the redemptive power of love. Bitter Greens is an impressive feat of storytelling.

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  1. Rogue Writer
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    As far as romantic fiction goes, Bitter Greens stands apart from the rest. Framed as the retelling of the modern version of “Rapunzel,” the story spans three generations. Two are seemingly fictional, and one is based on the real-life writer of the Rapunzel story that we have come to know: Charlotte-Rose Caumont de la Force. I enjoyed how the author paced these stories and weaved them together, slowly revealing hints at where the story is going. Most commendable is how she made even the most wicked of characters sympathetic. Ultimately, this is the story of how three women dealt with the cultures in which they were raised, cultures in which women were systematically repressed by men. It shows the women as strong and empowered, taking their liberation into their own hands. There are several brutal and twisted scenes in this book that bring the listener back to the original fairy and folk tales before Disney got ahold of them and made fairy tale endings synonymous with happy endings.

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