The Scribe of Siena

I do enjoy a good time-travel book, and Melodie Winawer's debut novel The Scribe of Siena (#685) certainly qualifies.


Beatrice Trovato is a busy New York neurosurgeon who finally makes time to visit her beloved older brother at his home in Siena.  He is a historian researching how the plague affected the city state of Siena.  Why did it suffer more than its neighbors during this period?  He has written to Beatrice that he has made an important discovery and persuaded her to come visit so he can share his enthusiasm for his adopted home with her at last.  Her plane tickets are booked when news reaches her that her brother Benjamin has died suddenly, leaving his house in Siena to her.


Beatrice finds herself equally captivated by Siena, and when she is pressured to turn over Benjamin's work to rival academics, she digs in her heels and determines to finish his plague project and publish it under his own name.  A journal from that time kept by artist Gabriele Accorsi leads her to his work.  How can she possibly appear in his paintings?  Beatrice is about to find out as she becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy centuries old to destroy the city of Siena...


What I loved most about this book, I think, is the fact that the romance here wasn't the primary driver of the plot.  There's got to be more to a story to hold my interest than "boy meets girl" and this book has it in spades. Why didn't Siena flourish the way Florence or Genoa did during that period?  This book poses an interesting theory of why Siena never prospered after it was hit by the Black Death.  The characters are well-rounded, and the setting so well described, it's possible to imagine yourself in Beatrice's shoes - an older, intelligent and experienced woman coping with what could be a nightmare scenario. It's a gripping read.


I look forward to more from Melodie Winawer.