Filed under: B Reviews Category, B+ Reviews, Ebooks, Reviews
Dear Mrs. Riley,
As I look back on the books of yours that I’ve read, two central themes stand out. 1) How helpless women were during most of history and 2) how it’s better for the little people to get out of the way of the powerful ones when those people are throwing their weight around. “The Serpent Garden” is no exception.
Susanna Dallet thinks she’s a happily - well, sort of happily, and she does try with The Good Wyfe’s Book of Manners - married woman. Her childhood nurse Nan knows differently. In fact, almost everyone in London knows that Master Dallet is a swine who’s dallying with a married lady and who only married Susanna for the painting secrets her father taught her. It takes his dead body delivered by his mistress’s husband’s men along with all his creditors descending on Susanna for her to learn the truth. And then what is she going to do? Women aren’t allowed to be master painters and she’s got bills to pay.
And this is where she begins to break the law, get in trouble by becoming involved with the High and Mighty men of the day …
I’m not much of one for Conspiracy Theories. When people begin babbling on about the grassy knoll, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Paul McCartney’s death or whether or not NASA astronauts actually landed on the moon, I generally tune them out or (even better) edge away and don’t look back as I flee the scene. I’ve never read the Da Vinci Code and never plan to. So, imagine my surprise when I got going with this book and realized I was right in the middle of one. A multinational one. One that has lasted for centuries and, based on what you wrote in your author’s note, is actually based on a true mystery of history. And I kept on reading. I was amazed.
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