Sallie Muirden

A priest and a prostitute, a painter and his apprentice, a handful of impish boys held in a convent, and a mysterious mute man who climbs from rooftop to rooftop via a ladder so that he never sets foot on solid ground, combine their voices to tell us a tale of seduction and secrecy in 17th century Seville.

A woman of Seville is a peculiar, unconventional tale of love among friends, high adventure, fantastical events, and yet a somber saddened story of the many hearts and souls of Spain during the time of the Moorish Occupation. This fairytale-like novel creatively crafted by Sallie Muirden, whose fine talent for exquisite writing mixed with humor, sexual passion, love found and love lost, and the beauty of life in small Spanish village, will have readers turning pages for a one sitting read. It will make you smile, make you contemplate, and will have you reminiscing and pondering about your own past and upcoming future adventures of the heart. It is certain to have you musing over the true meaning of life.

It's a quirky story, filled with the unexpected. It's characters are a motley crew of misfits and malcontents, visionaries and artisans, lovers and enemies, all surrounded by the atmospheric times of the Spanish Inquisition, the power of Rome, and the magic of love under the stars on a moonlit night.

Bravo Sallie for a sensational story any reader would find hard to forget. This one's a keeper!… (més)

In 1616 Seville, Diego is an apprenticed painter whose master is spying for the inquisitor Zamorana and Paula is a young courtesan, her patron's a Bishop whom she’s despises. In her spare time she’s a painter’s model, and her latest job has her modelling as Mary Magdalene in a painting that quickly comes to the attention of Zamorana.

Paula escapes her bishop’s attentions by taking to the rooftops with Aurelio, a ladder man who refuses to touch the ground and spends his nights climbing from balcony to balcony, watering plants and feeding cats for spare change.

For historical fiction, there is very little historical detail and where Muirden does include some historical context she assumes too much about the readers knowledge. There is a group of Morisco boys at the local priesthood, and from the story I worked out they are from Muslim families who had been expelled from Spain, but the place of Moriscos in history is completely unclear from the story. I had to Google them. I also completely missed the link between the master painter Harmen Weddesteeg of the story, and Rembrandt. Another review pointed this out, but the link seems tenuous to me (but then I’m not an art historian) and I still can’t work out what the point was of linking the two together anyway.

The Inquisition is still a threat at this time in Seville, but apart from one short incident, Muirden completely fails to convey a sense of danger, fear or tension.

Most of the characters seem like silhouettes, and I never really worked out what made them tick. The two exceptions are the Murisco boys, who simply want to escape the Catholic priesthood and try to reunite with their families, and Paula who enjoys the comforts and security afforded to her by her Bishop, but is repulsed by him to the point of jumping out her window to escape. Aurelio is potentially interesting, but he is an ethereal part of the story and we only begin to understand him at the end of the book.

The writing is average, and in places awkward. The low point was “I hurry forward and fold myself into the crowd like an egg yolk into batter”, but thankfully most of the rest of the writing doesn’t quite stoop to that level.

I was barely hanging in there with this book, then Muirden introduced ladders to the sky, and another world in the clouds. At this point, she completely lost me.

Up until then, the story had been completely realistic. The introduction of this single fantastical element came out of nowhere, and then was left behind almost as quickly. Other than emerging conflicts over territory and the resulting frustrations from the owners of the balconies which drive the ladder men out of Seville, there was no explanation as to why the ladder men suddenly decide to undergo the pilgrimage en masse to these ladders. Having finished the book, I still have no idea what the ladders and the world in the clouds even mean.

The only good thing I can say about A Woman Of Seville is that the blurb was written well enough to catch my attention. And as it turned out, that wasn't such a good thing. I just didn’t get this book.… (més)