Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! HFVBTs is one of the very first touring companies I started working with as a 1st Year Book Blogger – uniting my love and passion with Historical Fiction and the lovely sub-genres inside which I love devouring. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.
What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.
I received a complimentary copy of “The Myrtle Wand” by the author Margaret Porter in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
On why this review is a more condensed version of a regular one I usually feature:
For those who follow my blog, if you’ve been following me throughout the last nine years, you’ve known I lost two cats within the first two years of book blogging. I’ve just recently lost my third – as my beloved tabby of 18 years lost his health battle and is free of pain and suffering now. It has been a very emotionally difficult week for me and my family; whilst our fourth cat whose survived all three of the tabbys who were her siblings – is struggling herself with anxiety, panic attacks and her own sorrow. We’re doing our best to help guide her through this difficult season of mourning but as you will find on #TheSundayPost which I released ahead of this spotlighted post for the blog tour – it hasn’t been a good couple of months for me or my family.
When I saw this story was being offered on a blog tour, I was truly excited, and I was looking forward to reading a story which was rooted in an adaptation of a classical ballet! I personally love reading adaptive literature and retellings of classical stories across all works of interest. This would be my second re-envisioning of a ballet as my first was for Swan Lake as seen through the vision Kaki Olsen had for it.
However, this particular Summer had its fair share of ups and downs for my family and I. I was returning to reading in August and if my migraines hadn’t derailed in September, I think I might have had a chance of reading this story in its entirety. Of course, looking back is easier than how life is lived forward and with those migraines and another bout of stress in the final week of September ahead of my cat’s declining health last week and death; I will honestly say, I lost my footing with this story and another one (ie. The Other Side of Certain) which is reflective of how life can become disrupted by events we cannot foresee happening until they arrive. I regret I had less time to spend within the context of The Myrtle Wand but as I already missed one blog tour, I was refused to miss another one if I could help it.
This abridged review is part of my #25PagePreview posts and at a future date I am hopeful I can share a more expanded rumination of my time spent within the author’s vision of the story.
The Myrtle Wand
by Margaret Porter
Source: Author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
The Myrtle Wand, a retelling and a continuation of the classic ballet Giselle, restores original story elements to transform a tale of blighted romances and betrayals into a quest for redemption and restorative love.
Princess Bathilde de Sevreau, her school friend Myrte, and the peasant girl Giselle have heard the legend of the vilis, ghostly maidens who rise from their graves by night to roam the forest, seeking revenge on faithless lovers. Each will fear being ensnared by that spectral sisterhood…
Bathilde, destined for a marriage of convenience with Albin, Duc de Rozel, leaves her ancestral château for the Sun King’s sophisticated and scandalous court. As participants in royal ceremonies and entertainments, the princess and the soldier gradually recognize their deep feelings for each other, as well as mutual hopes for a happy and satisfying union. But the tragic consequences of Albin’s brief masquerade as a commoner and the amorous Louis XIV’s quest for a mistress divide the betrothed couple. Together and separately, they must overcome conflicting duties and unexpected dangers to determine their fate.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9798985673494
Published by Gallica Press
on 8th October, 2022
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 374
Converse via: #HistFic or #HistNov and #HistoricalFiction
+ #TheMyrtleWand as well as #HFVBT
Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook
About Margaret Porter
MARGARET PORTER is award-winning, bestselling author of The Myrtle Wand (October 2022), The Limits of Limelight (September 2021), Beautiful Invention: A Novel of Hedy Lamarr, and twelve other historical novels. After studying British history in the U.K., she worked professionally in theatre, film, and television. A historian and avid traveler, Margaret returns to Great Britain and Europe for research. She lives in New England with husband and dog, dividing her time between an architecturally unique book-filled house in a small city and a waterfront cottage on one of the region’s largest lakes.
The Myrtle Wand by Margaret Porter
The story opens innocently enough at a convent where nuns educate the children of the wealthier class and wherein they take-on the children as their charges – to guide, as well as to educate about the ways of the world and that of their Catholic faith. It is a place that is cloistered away from the world itself and set in a place and time where sanctity of service and humility of spirit are encouraged if not enforced. It was here we met two young girls – Bathilde and Myrte, of whom are kindred spirits in a school whose restrictive environment might prove too much for others. They were at different stages in their schooling but the two took to each other and formed a friendship that was quite strong. You could tell how Myrte enjoyed mothering Bathilde and how well Bathilde took to her guidance.
There was a new girl who started at the school who proved to be more stubborn than both the sisters and the other girls’ felt possible. She had had quite the life – living abroad and being given free reign to pursue whatever she wanted whenever you chose to do it. That kind of freedom was given too young and of course, it came with the consequence of her not yielding to her elders or of respecting the propriety of her generation. And, yet, there were moments where you felt she was at a complete disadvantage from the other girls’ entirely because she wasn’t as loved or wanted as the others were themselves. She was more passed about between guardians than she was looked after by a mother or a father.
Porter explored the interactions of the girls’ and the weight of responsibility which fell to Myrte to help educate this new student in both the order of the convent itself and the ways of the world in which a young woman in their era needed best to respect and understand. When Myrte spoke about the choices afforded to them through the convent itself, I had a memory of The Trouble with Angels move through my mind as that was something Haley Mills character learnt herself was true for her own journey. Sometimes the best opportunity was the one not known or wanted but the one which provided the best future for the girl who didn’t have another path to follow and I felt that that might be the inspiration behind mentioning the choices girls’ were given to stay at the convent itself.
From there, the story took a sad turning as the new girl became quite ill and was whisked away. I know not what happened past that as my time in the text had concluded. Porter heled my attention whilst gathered my curiosity about Giselle and how all the girls’ would start to interact with each other and crossect their lives together. As I had a bit of foreshadowing that that might start to happen quite soon indeed.
On the historical styling of Margaret Porter
& re-envisioning of “Giselle”:
I had a feeling the character of “Giselle” would prove to be mean more the further on you get into the novel itself. As this particular girl is only merely hinted about a bit in the opening chapters – of which I read for this blog tour. Giselle in this story is lower bourne than the other girls’ and in a society where hierarchy is the rule of the day, I was dearly interested in her life and how her life intersected with Bathilde. Porter drew you into Bathilde’s life by providing just enough nuggets of details about her younger years to draw your interest. Especially how it was described she had become motherless and the tragic death of both her Mum and brother. There is a hidden sympathy there for her and also for how she found fortitude of spirit within her friendship with Myrte.
The nuns themselves reminded me of other stories and films I’ve seen about nuns who teach and part of this story nearly reminded me of the origins of Jane Eyre. They were strict but fair and they were encouraging rather than simply overbearing. I like whenever a story showcases them in a truer light than a stigma of what people might think they are like and therefore shortchange their personalities from whom they truly are — Porter, thankfully understood them and was giving them a positive light in which to thrive in this story.
As the setting is just becoming set to stage the story, I felt the opening chapters proved futile ground in which to grow the rest of the story. I knew there was going to be different twists and turns in the plotting but in the beginning, it is a bit more innocent and calm. It will be interesting to see where the story goes from this junction and also, to see where the pieces of the ballet connect into the folds of the novel. On that note, I was especially curious to move forward and continue to uncover Porter’s vision of this retelling. One thing she excelled at was visually representing the season and weather – giving you a strong impression of the environment in which the girls’ lived and the climate surrounding the convent.
This blog tour is courtesy of:
Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours!
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{SOURCES: Book cover for “The Myrtle Wand”, book synopsis, author biography, the tour host badge and HFVBTs badge were all provided by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Book Spotlight banner, #24PagePreview banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2022.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2022 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
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