January 1, 2022
A Somerset Maugham Award winner and BBC National Short Story Award short-listee, Stevens has published two memoirs in the United States, including the writer's meditation Bleaker House. Now she offers an intriguing first novel about 14-year-old Blanca, who dies giving birth in 1473 Mallorca but hangs around in ghostly form for four centuries until the arrival of George Sand and her entourage. Blanca falls in love with the writer, who knows nothing of the passionate spirit she cannot see.
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Starred review from May 15, 2022
A 15th-century ghost describes falling in love with an oblivious George Sand during her family's stay in Mallorca in this lyrical debut novel. Blanca died at the age of 14 in 1473 and has been haunting the Charterhouse, a once-bustling monastery in Valldemossa, ever since. She's never encountered a fellow ghost and has spent the past 365 years silently observing the living. She's discovered things about herself since passing on--she's attracted to women as well as men, and her spectral powers include the ability to explore people's memories and gaze into their futures--but has also found her afterlife growing smaller and smaller in scope as time wears on. The monks Blanca used to torment with poltergeistlike antics are long gone, and Blanca's last living direct relative, a "multiple-times-great granddaughter," is on death's door when, out of the blue, new tenants arrive at the Charterhouse: French writer George Sand; Polish composer Fr�d�ric Chopin, her lover; her two children; and a servant girl. Sand's masculine gender expression immediately draws Blanca's fascination even as it alarms the locals, who are already wary of foreigners and Chopin's obvious ill health. Stevens' prose is by turns languid and visceral--she manages to capture both the alienation from the normal passage of time that comes with a lonely eternal life and the profound longing for and appreciation of the sensory that comes with lacking a physical body. An entrancing and singular exploration of a fascinating historical footnote and a queer life after death.
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June 1, 2022
Stevens' (The Victorian and the Romantic, 2018) first novel is a retelling of George Sand and Fr�d�ric Chopin's nineteenth-century Majorcan retreat, with a dash of a ghost story thrown in. Blanca died at 14 in 1473, and in the intervening centuries has spent her time alone, keeping a watchful eye on her descendants, tormenting badly behaved men, and gently haunting the monastery where she lives. She has also discovered an attraction to women. Blanca's world is shaken with the arrival of Sand, her two children, Chopin, and their servant. The locals do not trust the strange woman that dresses like a man or her sickly composer companion, but Blanca is utterly intrigued with George, whose memories she takes the liberty of exploring, often triggering her own reminiscences. Stevens' writing is beautiful and evocative of the Majorcan landscape as she slowly develops the arc of Sand and Chopin's affair and elucidates Blanca's life spent in tantalizing anticipation. While each story suffers slightly at the hands of the other, this is a winner with appeal beyond historical fiction readers.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
July 18, 2022
Stevens (Bleaker House: A Memoir) makes her fiction debut with a smart and haunting outing that immerses readers in Valldemosa, Mallorca, over four centuries. The story revolves around the ghost of a 14-year-old girl named Blanca, who died in the 15th century and is captivated by the appearance of author George Sand and her lover, composer Frédéric Chopin, on vacation in the late 19th century. Blanca is attracted to both men and women, and her playful, sensuous narration describes the centuries she’s spent observing the trysts of monks in the monastery where she lives. Sand’s masculine dress particularly excites Blanca, though it elicits disgust of the villagers. As Chopin becomes gravely ill, Stevens alternates the lovers’ story with Blanca’s memories of her own life and death, and Blanca dwells on feelings of blame toward the man who got her pregnant during their affair. Eventually, the stories entwine, as Blanca uses her ghostly powers to intercede in Chopin’s fate. Though Stevens’s idealized view of Sand can feel a bit Mary Sue–ish, for the most part it credibly reflects Blanca’s romanticizing of a woman who “dressed like a man, kissed like a man, smoked like a man.” This will entice readers. Agent: Emma Parry, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.
June 1, 2022
Debut Award-winning memoirist and short story author Stevens (Bleaker House) examines the nature of desire and women's fate throughout history with an intriguing, mostly successful reimagining of George Sand's 1838-39 stay in Mallorca with her children and much-loved Fr�d�ric Chopin, told from the perspective of a lusty, impetuous ghost. In 1473, 14-year-old Blanca dies giving birth at the monastery where her baby's thoughtless young father is a novice. She remains there for centuries, learning how to assert herself in the world and prank the licentious monks until the monastery's abandonment. Then Sand arrives with her entourage, and Blanca falls in love, having come to value women after her death; once they represented to her only "comforting boredom." Because she's mastered the art of reading memories, Blanca can narrate not only her life but Sand's; when she senses crisis coming, she resorts to a little-used ability to see the future and diverts Sand and her little family from disaster. VERDICT Unexpectedly light in tone, Stevens's story of patriarchal abuse is sadly familiar in outline. What stands out, aside from the powerful rendering of Chopin's music, is the daring, desire-drenched Blanca. For a historical character, she can sound annoyingly like a contemporary teenager, but readers of all stripes will embrace her.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.