Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brook

I used to love this season. The Wood stacked by the door, the tang of its sap still speaking of forest.

Title: Year of Wonders
Author: Geraldine Brooks
ISBN: 184115458
Publisher:Fourth Estate/2001
Pages: 304

Year of Wonders is about plague that took place in 1666, in an isolated Mountain village. The plague might have come there with an bolt of cloth from London. Anna Frith, the narrator, is a housemaid. In the midst of all this madness, she emerges as a strong heroine, who tries her best to heal. The plague destroys almost all of the village and also reason. Poeple go frenzy with madness and resort to witch hunting. Anna comes out stronger out of all this with faith, and love for people.

She loses here own family. That doesn't deter her from offering her services for healing those who need her. The minister of the village insists that they quarante their village so that it does not spread far and wide. Apart from a few handful, everyone agrees to it. In a way, 1666 becomes an Year of Wonders instead of Year of Plague.

Anna Firth comes out to be strong woman. She has faith in their minister and most important in the young wife of the minister. Their relationship is not that of a mistress and a servant but more like two sisters. Both love each other. Elinor teaches Anna to read too. Mr Mompellion, the minister loves his wife Elinor, which seems to be reciprocated well.

For all her goodwill, her healing powers, Anna is torn with misplaced love too. She is one of the survivors of the plague and she knows what she has to do at the end of it. We don't see Anaa failing us at any time and she has got her priorities right too. In those times when a woman was taken for a witch just because she could heal, Anna survives in more ways than one. With good writing, this makes an extremely readable book. Brooks has made that period of time come alive for us.