Sacred Hearts: A Novel [Paperback]

Sarah Dunant (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 6, 2010

The year is 1570, and a new novice has just been forced into the Italian convent of Santa Caterina. Ripped by her family from the man she loves, sixteen-year-old Serafina is sharp and defiant. Her first night inside the walls is spent in an incandescent rage so violent that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is dispatched to the girl’s cell to sedate her. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal. As Serafina rails against her incarceration, disorder and rebellion mount inside the convent, while beyond its walls, the dictates of the Counter-Reformation begin to impose a regime of oppression that threatens what little freedom the nuns have enjoyed. Acclaimed author Sarah Dunant brings the intricate Renaissance world compellingly to life in this rich, engrossing, multifaceted love story encompassing the passions of the flesh, the exultation of the spirit, and the deep, enduring power of friendship.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Dunant (The Birth of Venus) revisits 16th-century Italy, where the convents are filled with the daughters of noblemen who are unable or unwilling to pay a dowry to marry them off. The Santa Caterina convent's newest novice, Serafina, is miserable, having been shunted off by her father to separate her from a forbidden romance. She also has a singing voice that will be the glory of the convent and—more importantly to some—a substantial bonus for the convent's coffers. The convent's apothecary, Suora Zuana, strikes up a friendship with Serafina, enlisting her as an assistant in the convent dispensary and herb garden, but despite Zuana's attempts to help the girl adjust, Serafina remains focused on escaping. Serafina's constant struggle and her faith (of a type different from that common to convents) challenge Zuana's worldview and the political structure of Santa Caterina. A cast of complex characters breathe new life into the classic star-crossed lovers trope while affording readers a look at a facet of Renaissance life beyond the far more common viscounts and courtesans. Dunant's an accomplished storyteller, and this is a rich and rewarding novel. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

British author Dunant expertly weaves the rhythms of daily convent life within the broader context of church politics and reform. Most critics were pleasantly surprised that a novel set in a nunnery could be fraught with such tension as they wondered, a bit nervously, about Serafina's ultimate fate. Dunant continues to create believable characters who were also very much women of their time. Several reviewers noted a sluggish beginning and occasional dry passages, but they believed readers would be rewarded for their patience. Ultimately, critics hailed Dunant as a skilled historian and accomplished storyteller who has written another engrossing, rewarding tale of the Italian Renaissance. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (April 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812974050
• ISBN-13: 978-0812974058
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #518,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author of the critically acclaimed Hannah Wolfe mystery series, Sarah Dunant is also well known in the United Kingdom for her work as a television host. She lives in London.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 101 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Pitch July 2, 2009

By S.A.H. Etons

Format:Hardcover

Fans of Sarah Dunant will not be disappointed! Like Dunant's Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, earlier works in what now is her trilogy of historical novels, Sacred Hearts has authentic roots in the Italian Renaissance. And it's a page-turner, a meticulously crafted story of love and devotion. Via a convent full of compelling female characters, Dunant cuts right to the soul of human relationships as we continue to interrogate them today. Dunant's young heroine, Serafina, is determined to escape the convent where she has been placed against her will. Through Serafina's struggles Dunant reveals the transformative powers not only of prayer but also of art, music, and medicine. She invites us to distinguish true spirituality from the threat of a rigid and dehumanizing fanaticism; to appreciate the vibrant life of women who refuse simply to obey; and to know both the ecstatic joy of song and the wondrous gifts of science. Rich with details that enable us to see, hear, and taste the city of Ferrara in the 16th century, Sacred Hearts is a big story with multiple marvelous crescendos.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking, profound, educational, & entertaining July 14, 2009

By Caitlin Martin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I didn't know quite what to expect from this novel about 16th century convent life. I really like good historical fiction, but the convent setting wasn't all that appealing. I'm so glad I read it anyway.

This was a wonderful & thought-provoking book. The characters (even the minor ones) are fully fleshed. The setting is used to the greatest advantage in the telling of the story - the claustrophobia of it, the beauty of it, the sense of the town & the outside world pressing against the convent walls. I loved learning about the day-to-day lives of these nuns & the ways they learned to live fully (or not so fully) in their world. The story of the dispensary sister, her garden, her remedies (learned from her doctor father) was also fascinating - I loved learning about how all kinds of cures were made. It's interesting to realize how many of these cures are still in use today in one form or another.

It is sobering to note that many of these women were walled up in convents against their will, to increase the dowries of a sibling or because they were disfigured, or just not very pretty, or not very smart or - perhaps worst of all - far too smart & talented. We've certainly come a long way. & yet despite the narrow confines of the nunnery & the narrowly defined roles assigned to these women they created full & rich lives & found ways to govern themselves, to make music & art, & to in many ways remove themselves from the world of men.

This was a moving story & a fascinating look into another world. Highly recommended.

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Words. They came from my mouth, not my heart." July 17, 2009

By Luan Gaines HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Dunant immerses her reader in 16th century Ferraro, in the convent of Santa Caterina, where devoted nuns spend their days in work, prayer and song, isolated from the temptations of the world. Holiness perfumes the halls of this convent, a group of woman dedicating their lives to the service of God. One would assume the usual human troubles have no place in God's house, but behind the thick walls and locked iron gates of Santa Caterina, human failings intrude on a regular basis. Meanwhile, the Council of Trent moves to further separate the nuns from the outside, fearing contamination from the world.

While the abbess, Madonna Chiara, weighs the implications of the Counter-Reformation and interfaces with life outside the convent, other personalities dominate convent life in Renaissance Italy: the fierce mistress of novices, Suora Umiliana, who heartily believes that starving the body will bring the soul closer to God; Suora Zuana, a healer whose herbs bring comfort to ailing nuns; Suora Magdalena, who is visited by visions in her humble cell; and Suora Perseveranza, who espouses "the music of suffering". All of these characters are impacted by the new novice who wails against her fate. Serafina resists her imprisonment in the insular world of convent life, a pawn of fortune and her father's will. Suora Zuana attempts to comfort the grieving novice, touched by Sarafina's palpable despair.

As in her previous novels, Dunant doesn't disappoint, breathing life in to 16th century Italy behind thick convents walls. In Santa Caterina, even the holy nuns cannot escape their flaws, exacerbated by the tortured days of the reluctant novice, who suffers the unimaginable torments of her isolation from the world and the man she loves.... Even in the realm of the sacred, temptation insinuates itself, ambition to be closest to God, to experience the exhilaration of pain. The prayers, hymns, incense and yearning for God are tangible. All the more painful for the healer, Suora Zuana, to question her conscience, her own precious serenity at risk by the actions she considers.

Sacred Hearts is all the more powerful for its sense of isolation, a separateness from the world and the subtle balance between pride and humility that is integral to such a vocation, interior struggles all the more intense for the imposed silence and watchful eyes of others. Dunant has an exceptional ability to translate such an existence, to make familiar the daily offices of prayer, small sacrifices and the quest to be one with God. This is a rare and beautifully wrought tale of exquisite intelligence, the private landscape of the soul and the permutations of choice in the religious life. In the holiest of places, the sacred territory between the promises of heaven and the joys of the earth, prayers are answered. Luan Gaines/2009. Read more ›

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dunant's Plot is as Riveting as that of Any Thriller July 27, 2009

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

From THE NUN'S STORY to IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, from BLACK NARCISSUS to MARIETTE IN ECSTASY, novels about nuns have been an enthusiasm of mine since girlhood. The spare, contemplative life of the convent, the "marriage" to Christ, the drama of doubt and temptation: All this was inconceivably romantic to someone raised without a drop of religion. Although I hadn't yet experienced love or sex --- those mysterious objects of desire still hung in the misty, hypothetical future --- I was fascinated by the decision to forgo them entirely. It seemed enviably pure.

Pure is not the word that comes to mind when the reader is introduced to the sisters in SACRED HEARTS, the third of Sarah Dunant's wonderful historical novels (her previous two took place in Florence and Venice; this one in Ferrara) --- they are altogether more worldly souls. In the late 16th century, it seems, extraordinary faith was not a prerequisite for taking vows; often nuns were women who were simply losers in the marriage market. Perhaps they suffered from physical disabilities (cleft lip, twisted spine), or they were from families that couldn't afford to see them properly wed (in an Author's Note we learn that dowries had become so inflated that by 1600 nearly half of Italian noblewomen were destined to become nuns!).

Although some convents at the time were humble affairs, Santa Caterina, the fictional setting for SACRED HEARTS, is hardly a closed-off spiritual enclave. One nun has a pet dog; others write plays and compose choral music; all are able, on designated occasions, to meet face-to-face with family.Their cells, often containing such amenities as books, carpets and satin sheets, are cleaned by lay servants.... The community is a business entity, producing and trading in illuminated manuscripts and painted religious figurines, herbal medicines and embroidered church robes, as well as a political one, competing with other convents to win patronage and fame.

Suora Zuana, the dispensary mistress --- the closest thing Santa Catarina has to a doctor --- makes the ironic point that women are often better off within the convent than they would be in the outside world: "[T]here are no fathers to bully or rage at the expensive uselessness of daughters, no brothers to tease and torment weaker sisters, no rutting drunken husbands poking constantly at tired or pious wives." And in the remarkably democratic institution of the chapter meeting, each nun "has a voice and a vote" on everything from what they will eat to whom they will have as Abbess.

The daughter of an enlightened medical man whose sudden death left her nowhere else to go, Zuana is essentially a scientist plopped down in the middle of a religious community. For 16 years she has wrestled with the demands of faith and her own conscience, although she has also found a certain tranquility at Santa Caterina. She is the person the reader will most identify with: open-minded, self-doubting, curious, caring and practical --- a modern heroine underneath her habit.

She finds herself caught between two opposed convent philosophies. On the one hand there is the mysticism and orthodoxy of Umiliana, the sharp-tongued, frighteningly intense sister in charge of the novices (those who haven't yet taken final vows). But there is also the penchant for realism and diplomacy epitomized by the Abbess, Madonna Chiara, a natural politician who sees no conflict between serving God and glorifying her family. This power struggle --- isolation and repression versus worldliness and liberality --- mirrors the one taking place in the Catholic world of the late 1500s in the wake of Martin Luther's accusations of sin and hypocrisy. Change is looming, and Zuana, Umiliana and Chiara are fighting, each in her own way, for the survival of Santa Catarina in troubled times.

They are also fighting for the soul of Serafina, the newest novice. This high-born young woman has been sent to the convent as punishment for falling in love with her music teacher, and her angry presence rocks Santa Catarina to its foundations. Although reputed to have a stunning voice, she uses it to scream in the night, not sing in the choir; with her desperate plots, anorexic extremes (she is, after all, a teenager), quick wit and personal charm, she tests the limits of Chiara's pragmatism, Umiliana's fanaticism and Zuana's compassion.

The drama of SACRED HEARTS is intensified and distilled by Dunant's decision to set the novel entirely within the convent walls and to alternate her narrative between Zuana's point of view and Serafina's --- the ambivalent veteran and the ardent, angry newcomer. The color and detail of her writing is, as always, astounding; by the end of the book I felt that I knew Santa Caterina intimately and could sense the solemn rhythm of the convent's daily offices, from Lauds to Matins.

I won't go into the denouement, because Dunant's plot is as riveting as that of any thriller. But it isn't giving anything away to say that, ultimately, orthodoxy wins out, as the Abbess anticipates (she tells Zuana to memorize her medical books, for soon she won't be allowed to have them). By 1600, says the Author's Note, new convent rules were being imposed. Contact with the outside world was "brutally restricted"; plays and music were banned, and luxuries and private possessions confiscated.

There is a modern echo of such a shift in the Vatican's recent investigation of American nuns, who are apparently suspected of being overly secular and insufficiently devout.* Zuana and her Abbess would, I am sure, take a dim view of this development. SACRED HEARTS suggests that it is possible, though difficult, to follow a consistent spiritual practice while using your brains and talents to engage in work that makes a difference in the world. It says that sisterhood is powerful.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman Read more ›