Widowland

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In ‘Queen High’ these qualities continue creating an intelligent and thought provoking novel that is also very exciting. I found it engaging and certainly a worthy sequel to ‘Widowland’. Thirteen years have passed since a Grand Alliance between Great Britain and Germany was formalized. George VI and his family have been murdered and Edward VIII rules as King. Yet, in practice, all power is vested in Alfred Rosenberg, Britain’s Protector. The role and status of women is Rosenberg’s particular interest. Like many Gelis, Rose is in a relationship with an SS man. Martin Kreuz works in her ministry and claims he loves her, but he is married. Rose has come to despise him in any case, and maintains a facade with him for self-preservation. Rose is no superheroine. She's a very slightly moist, sometimes even drippy, everywoman whose moral compass isn't aligned with her culture's. She has the decency to follow it, and not the mob. She is, then, who we can reasonably aspire to be if the worst happens.

A study of courage and memory, a celebration of the vital importance of history and literature, Widowland raises two immense questions above all. Are the values and inheritances that we rely on and take for granted really as secure and eternal as we think, or can we imagine needing to fight for them, as the residents of Widowland do? And will Rose’s slow awakening to the injustice and horror of the world that she lives in set her free, or crush her utterly? Charles Kerr The author, the historical novelist Jane Thynne. Widowland is her first book published under the pen name C. J. Carey However, in Queen Wallis, the plot and characters came across as very repetitive to the first novel. (A note on history repeating itself, perhaps?) Rose is a much weaker and less compelling character in this book. While this was clearly a specific choice the author made for the plot, it felt as if all the character work in Widowland had been undone. Given that I had just read the first book a month ago, it felt too similar. My Review: Fahrenheit 451 meets The Handmaid's Tale and they then mind-meld with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in a world where Edward VIII with his Nazi sympathies never abdicated. Every evening Rose Ransom looks in the mirror and marvels that she's even alive. A mere woman, her role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry, where her work now focuses on the outlawed subject of Poetry, a form of writing that transmits subversive meanings, emotions and signals that cannot be controlled. Therefore all Poetry is banned and Rose is appointed a Poet Hunter.Rose is a great character. Her quest is very unique and dare I say I was drawn to her personality and the fundamental concepts, decisions, and inner voice that were presented within this story.

Widowland by C. J. Carey is a unique and entertaining dystopian and alternative history novel that gives us the insight into what if…Unsurprisingly, the regime discourages female literacy. Girls are not taught to read until the age of eight and even after that, they are taught at a more basic level. The intended goal is that a female's vocabulary should be no more than two thirds that of a man. The risk of reading was 'that it could accidentally expand a child’s use of language. It might enchant and intoxicate her. Help her express herself in new and exciting ways.' It is the casual way that it is gently 'suggested' that a girl need not bother learning to read, such as when Rose's boss - a married older German who is also her lover - tells her that she should not read to her niece, Such impossible choices are clearly embodied in Rose’s own family — in the obedience of her sister and brother-in-law, in the quiet and increasingly dangerous outspokenness of her ageing father, and in the innocence of her niece, for whom Rose defiantly writes secret fairy stories of female courage and freedom.

A chilling thriller with an alternate-history twist...highly recommended." - Library Journal (starred review) Widowland называется «Книга Розы» и, как ни странно, такая локализация куда удачней простого перевода. Роза мечется между своим отцом, сестрой, любовником, работой, но только книги дают ей возможность трезво посмотреть на свою судьбу и понять, что нужно что-то менять. Rose has forgotten what happened two years previous when The Leader was assassinated. The Event has been erased from history and memories. She is fuzzy about her role in what had happened. C. J. Carey's novel, Widowland, couldn't be more chilling—or dystopian—given the frightening political landscape confronting women in America and elsewhere. It is an important, and well-written book for our time...Carey astutely articulates, via her characters, her concerns about the fragility of democracy in our own times." - New York Journal of BooksBefore the Leader arrives for the Coronation ceremony of King Edward and Queen Wallis, Rose must infiltrate Widowland to find the source of this rebellion and ensure that it is quashed. The idea that the American Queen Wallis, a rapacious, greedy person whose grudges were legendary, would want to give up her life atop the heap is so unlikely as to be risible; but this isn't rigorous allohistorical scenario design, it's tendentious warning-blaring. It's meant for the world with Erdoğan, Orban, Modi, and Putin trotting around unassassinated in it, to detail a few of the not-at-all unlikely societal effects thereof on decent human beings. Most especially women. Author Carey is excellent at the evocation of the personal costs of totalitarian rule based on religious "principles" and there's no doubt that the cult of eugenics, written into law, would function quite well as a "moral" force like religion.