The Virgin Blue

So this book started off strong very strong The story of the 1500 Isabelle was very interesting, although could have been developed a little , I think I actually had a hard time putting the book down in the first three quarters or However, by the end, I was pretty much tired of it Tired, because it was so odd and unbelievable, and I d really stopped caring for Ella, the modern day main character.I loved the idea of what was happening the same land, same family, a modern day version of the chara [...]

Meni li no je ovo najdra a Trejsina knjiga Ina e nisam naro iti ljubitelj njenih romana

I was incredibly disappointed in this book I had read Girl With a Pearl Earring and been very impressed, so I picked up this one expecting something as good Well, maybe not AS good, since The Virgin Blue was her first book and I was prepared to give her some wriggle room for growth and learning and so on.Let me say that I think the book s premise is very strong, and I really loved the flashbacks to Isabella In my opinion, these segments were strong and interesting and well written.Where the book [...]

Apparently, this was Tracy Chevalier s first novel, quite different from most of her other ones I have read two other novels by this author, Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Lady and the Unicorn , and have enjoyed both very much This author has a style that appeals to me, simple and straightfoward but with a beauty of its own in the way she captures the characters that compose her stories.Although I liked The Virgin Blue , reading it in two days, I ended up fairly confused as to what had happen [...]

4.5 starsThis book gets a pretty easy 4.5 stars from me I m a sucker for a good historical fiction with a female character researching her connection to her family s past, which is the basic sum of the plot That said, this book had a lot going for it aside from my natural affinity for the plot line.I will admit that a lot of my historical fiction reading has been by certain authors and set in certain areas, which may make the book novel to me than to a widely read historical fiction fan, but t [...]

I picked it up and a day and a half later, I set it down At first, I wasn t sure what I was getting myself into, but 20 pages in and I was completely hooked Since I haven t read anything else by Tracy Chevallier, I wasn t sure I would enjoy her writing I was happy to discover she has a natural knack for character development, I found her to be a very honest author, unafraid to describe what we are really feeling inside Exposing the vulnerability of human nature with her intertwining stories of l [...]

Definitely not as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring I was really enjoying the first two thirds of the book, but I didn t like the direction it took after that There are two parallel stories happening and the modern one is less believable than the one that takes places four hundred years ago I liked the character Isabelle from the 1500 s much better than Ella from modern day I ll still read by Chevalier She has a nice style of writing that totally sucks me in.

Okay, maybe 1.5 stars is fair Anyway, this book annoyed the heck out of me This is my third Chevalier novel also read Girl w a Pearl Earring and The Lady and the Unicorn and enjoyed the first two this is her first novel and I think it shows There are 2 main characters in this book both women, but living centuries apart Ella, the present day character, is an American ex pat living in France with her husband, and Isabelle is her distant ancestor living in France during the time of the Huguenots M [...]

Surprisingly, this was somewhat a book about a mystery, but it did get me thinking quite a bit, particularly about memories and how they are stored in the brain Because one of the two main characters develops memories from her distant relative distant being 400ish years ago , I started to wonder about memories and if we will ever figure out a way to harvest and save memories to be viewed when host is no longer with us It seems crazy, but maybe at one time, it seemed crazy to think we could hear [...]

Having never read Chevalier s work I was very pleased with this novel, which is her first The interesting thing to me was that the story took place at two different times in history but in the same geographic area The first chapter introduces us to Isabelle, a girl who lives in France in the 1600s during a religious upheaval Isabelle is seen as odd by her town because of her red hair, which was uncommon at the time In chapter two we meet Ella, an American who has moved to France with her husband [...]

Tracy Chevalier is a very frustrating author for me I liked the first one I read The Lady and the Unicorn , I adored the second one I read Falling Angels and was disappointed with the third The Girl in the Pearl Earrings This is the 4th, and once again, disappointed The thing that disappoints me most is that the subject material is so rich, I can see how the book could be so good I know nothing about the Huguenots in France and would love to read I love history, I love genealogy and so forth Th [...]

This was a very interesting book about two women, centuries apart, linked through blood and circumstances Ella Turner moves to France with her husband Rick for his job She has nothing to do with her days she was a midwife in the U.S but cannot yet practice in France and begins researching her family history In nearly every other chapter we read of Isabella, who lived 400 years earlier She is beginning her adult life with a marriage and child on the way Forced to give up her beliefs in the Cathol [...]

I really loved this book in a lot of ways, but the sense of inevitability, that feeling of descending tragedy that cannot be averted, was so strong and, of course, correct We were looking at events that had already occurred and those could not be changed But when we were experiencing them in a present tense I really wished that Isabelle could have found a way out of the life and tragedies that were here destiny, especially for Marie I was just sick about it Also found myself in favor of Jean Pau [...]

I borrowed this from my housemate because I had thoroughly enjoyed Girl With the Pearl Earring years ago The Virgin Blue is so different from Girl and yet still a great read I was fascinated with the redhead history being one myself and had never heard of Mary as a redhead before The whole redhead as witch thing is pretty common and always makes me kind of smile.ough I guess I hadn t realized it had pushed so far south it is an old but common belief in northern and eastern Europe.I didn t get su [...]

I really enjoyed the split narrative two female narrators, one in the 16th century, the other in the present day , but I wanted closure than the ending ultimately provided I m tired of concluding in a state of liminal possibility.

This kinda of has a stereotypical romance novel feel to it married women meets French man, and they have an affair and that sort of thing But there is another story besides this one that is really interesting, about her ancestor during medieval times It follows her as she gets married and raises a family, and the issues she must deal with in her community and home during a time where social rules were changing under religious turmoil I enjoyed it.

Unfortunatley, not a favorite of mine from this author I usually really enjoy reading her books but this one, while it started out strong, just came together too quickly at the end and I was left very confused It was also a bit heavy on the romance for my tastes The early storyline was interesting and I enjoyed learning about French history but the second storyline was not engaging and felt a bit too false, it didn t really ring true for me.

Inilah buku kedua Tracy yang saya baca setelah The Lady and The Unicorn Sepertinya Tracy menggunakan wanita sebagai tokoh sentral dalam karya karyanya Membaca buku ini, kita dibawa kembali ke alam alam pedesaan dan pertanian Prancis pada awal abad 16 Sepertinya tidak seru bila tidak didahului dengan konteks historis.Latar BelakangSebuah gerakan yang awalnya mengkritisi kebijakan gereja katolik Roma Seorang bernama Martin Luther memulai gerakan itu di Jerman pada tahun 1517 Pokok pokok yang diper [...]

This first in a long line of novels by an extraordinarily inventive and resourceful storyteller visits France of now and 400 years ago.

The Virgin Blue is two stories in one Or possibly two sides of the same story In one story, set in modern day, American Ella Turner is a midwife studying for re licensing after relocating with her husband to France She investigates her ancestral roots for something to do and becomes intrigued in both her family history and the local librarian, Jean Paul The other story is that of Isabelle du Moulin, a French Protestant woman who marries into the Tournier family and who escapes persecution by the [...]

XVI secolo, in Francia tutto il villaggio conosce Isabelle du Moulin come La Rossa, una ragazza dai capelli color rame, ma l arrivo dei calvinisti adepti al fanatismo della Riforma renderanno il nomignolo di Isabelle sinonimo di stregoneria Dopo le persecuzioni seguite alla Notte di massacro di San Bartolomeo, incinta, prender la via della fuga con il compagno il giovane Tournier trovando asilo in un remoto villaggio svizzero, che le riserver tuttavia un futuro cupo e pieno di sofferenze.Un dest [...]

Several things were covered in this historical modern day novel Part of the story was of Isabelle, a 15th century woman who was cursed with having red hair the same color of hair as the Virgin Mary was portrayed as having The time period was about the time when the Huguenots were being chased out of France into Sweden The other part of the story is about Ella, a modern day woman who is researching the mystery behind her family ancestry after a move to France.In essence, this is partly a historic [...]

I really liked this novel The overlapping stories are fascinating, exciting, and propel a sense of reality that sometimes other fiction can not accomplish I believe that Tracy Chevalier is a talented writer story teller because of her characters, subjects, and environments, in which she places those characters After watching a short video with her being interviewed about her newest book, Remarkable Creatures, I realize how her creative mind works and what inspires her She is very attentive to de [...]

Before penning her bestselling novel Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier wrote The Virgin Blue, the mesmerizing story of two women living in France 400 years apart Let me just say that I loved, loved, LOVED this novel I couldn t bear to put it down and so I read it practically straight through in a matter of hours.Chevalier s description of the people and towns of France both in present day and in the past are amazingly full of life and incredibly beautiful It was impossible not to fall i [...]

I like Tracy Chevalier s writing Her books, Girl with a Pearl Earring and Falling Angels were terrific This book was good and I did finish it, but it fell short compared to her others I enjoyed the story of Isabelle du Moulin so than Ella Turner s story Isabelle is a tragic heroine and I wanted to learn about her and her situation Ella s story, while less tragic certainly, entertained me but did not grasp me I felt distant from her somehow I think she created her own problems and then looked f [...]

Two women face life changing challenges in Tracy Chevalier s The Virgin Blue Isabelle, whose hair changes color to auburn, the supposed color of the Virgin Mary s hair, becomes La Rouse during the time of the Reformation and watches as her community turns away from the Virgin s veneration All the family s beliefs are challenged, especially as Isabelle s sister and then her mother die Her brothers leave to fight in a war, never to return She tells her father that she will marry and she and her hu [...]

Ella Tournier mengikuti suaminya pindah dari Amerika ke Perancis, dan menemukan rumah di sebuah kota kecil dekat Toulouse sejak itu, Ella yang sebenarnya mempunyai leluhur berasal dari Perancis, bermimpi tentang warna biru yang benar benar biru suatu gabungan antara kesedihan dan ketenangan dan juga suara suara aneh dalam bahasa asing serta suara batu berdebam karena merasa asing di kota tersebut alias belum biasa diterima oleh orang orang di sana , plus tidak punya kesibukan, akhirnya Ella mula [...]

This book, which I believe Tracy Chevalier wrote before Girl With a Pearl Earring, reminded me an awful lot of The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve It uses the same concept of alternating a historical plot with present day events, and both modern heroines are facing similar issues.The modern story follows Ella, a woman with French ancestry who moves to France because of her husband s work They decide to live in a small French town and Ella gets involved with a local librarian while researching he [...]

I respect Chevalier s concept for her books taking a famous painting and imagining an entire story around it Now, after a while, I think this concept might get a bit formulaic and redundant In this book, I can see that she is actively trying to avoid just such a situation Rather than imagining how the portrait came to be, as in Girl with a Pearl Earring , Chevalier instead concentrates solely on the girl in the portrait and tries to imagine her life The pacing of the book was a bit faster than P [...]

I thoroughly enjoyed The Virgin Blue It s not as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring, but still good enough to recommend The story alternates between the 16th and 20th centuries and the lives of two women who are distantly related I thought the story of Isabelle living in the 16th century was actually believable than Ella in the 20th As always, stories that showcase devotion to the Virgin intrigue me.