Cities of Women
by Kathleen B. Jones
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Pub Date Sep 05 2023 | Archive Date Aug 31 2023
Turner Publishing Company | Keylight Books
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Description
“With a scholar’s commitment to accurate detail, and the heart of a lover of beauty, Kathleen B. Jones’s engaging and well-crafted parallel story is as colorful and lucid as the illuminated manuscripts at the center of her novel.” —Laurel Corona, author of The Mapmaker’s Daughter
A deeply affecting dual narrative separated by several centuries, Cities of Women examines the lives of women who dare to challenge the social norms of their days, risking their reputations and livelihoods for the sake of their passions.
In the twenty-first century, we meet Verity Frazier, a disillusioned history professor who sets out to prove that the artist responsible for the illuminated artwork in Christine de Pizan’s medieval manuscripts was a remarkable woman named Anastasia. As Anastasia’s story unfolds against the exquisitely-rendered medieval backdrop of moral disaster, political intrigue, and extraordinary creativity, Verity finds her career on the brink of collapse by her efforts to uncover evidence of the lost artist’s existence.
Inspired by a decade of research, Jones has woven together a luminous and incisive masterpiece of historical fiction, evoking the spare joys and monumental pitfalls facing medieval women artists and a contemporary woman who becomes obsessed with medieval books.
Advance Praise
“At its heart, Cities of Women is both a detective story about the search for, and love letter to, the women who worked on the beautiful illuminated manuscripts of the medieval era. The novel is both sensitive and well researched, an accomplished debut which marks Jones out as one to watch.” —Laura Shepperson, author of Phaedra
“With a scholar’s commitment to accurate detail, and the heart of a lover of beauty, Kathleen B. Jones’s engaging and well-crafted parallel story brings to light female creativity in medieval France. Jones’ s writing is as colorful and lucid as the illuminated manuscripts at the center of her novel, and the unforgettable story makes Cities of Women a must read for anyone interested in finding and honoring the forgotten women of western art.” —Laurel Corona, author of The Mapmaker’s Daughter
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781684429998 |
| PRICE | $30.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 272 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Suanne S, Reviewer
The Cities of Women is a multiple point of view novel that shifts between Verity Frazier, a modern academic, Bèatrice, a medieval French artist, and Christine de Pizan, the French-Italian writer for the court of Charles VI, during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The title is a reference to Christine’s books, The Book of the City of Ladies andThe Treasure of the City of Ladies. Recurrent themes include feminism and achieving one’s personal goals in life and in one’s profession as well as attempts to change the patriarchal world through women’s written word and paintings.
The novel captures the medieval period quite well with its staggering differences between the wealthy and the poor, though the Black Death is a great equalizer. So many women are made to feel inferior even when they are experts in their respective fields, and Verity’s plight, feeling she’s an imposter as an academic and unable to complete her book on the women of the French Revolution, epitomizes this. The writing is poetic at times and the material clearly well-researched. I enjoyed the minutia of details about mixing pigments, making parchment, and how early books were manufactured. at the beginning of each new chapter.
Mixed in with the historical aspects is a modern sapphic romance. I didn’t find the love interest, Anatasia, to be very sympathetic and couldn’t understand Verity’s interest in her. Overall, Cities of Women is a deft look at women who defy the expectations of their times yet remain overlooked by the patriarchy and attempts to place them at greater parity and make them less invisible.
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