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The Scribe of Siena: A Novel
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Published:
Gallery Books 2017
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
"Like Outlander with an Italian accent." —Real Simple

"A detailed historical novel, a multifaceted mystery, and a moving tale of improbable love." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A NEW YORK POST MUST-READ BOOK

Readers of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring...will be swept away by the spell of medieval Siena" (Library Journal, starred review) in this transporting love story and gripping historical mystery.
Accomplished neurosurgeon Beatrice Trovato knows that her deep empathy for her patients is starting to impede her work. So when her beloved brother passes away, she welcomes the unexpected trip to the Tuscan city of Siena to resolve his estate, even as she wrestles with grief. But as she delves deeper into her brother's affairs, she discovers intrigue she never imagined—a 700-year-old conspiracy to decimate the city.

As Beatrice explores the evidence further, she uncovers the journal and paintings of the fourteenth-century artist Gabriele Accorsi. But when she finds a startling image of her own face, she is suddenly transported to the year 1347. She awakens in a Siena unfamiliar to her, one that will soon be hit by the Plague.

Yet when Beatrice meets Accorsi, something unexpected happens: she falls in love—not only with Gabriele, but also with the beauty and cadence of medieval life. As the Plague and the ruthless hands behind its trajectory threaten not only her survival but also Siena's very existence, Beatrice must decide in which century she belongs.

The Scribe of Siena is the captivating story of a brilliant woman's passionate affair with a time and a place that captures her in an impossibly romantic and dangerous trap—testing the strength of fate and the bonds of love.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
05/16/2017
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781501152276
ASIN:
B01HMXRW4Y
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Melodie Winawer. (2017). The Scribe of Siena: A Novel. Gallery Books.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Melodie Winawer. 2017. The Scribe of Siena: A Novel. Gallery Books.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Melodie Winawer, The Scribe of Siena: A Novel. Gallery Books, 2017.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Melodie Winawer. The Scribe of Siena: A Novel. Gallery Books, 2017.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 16:13:16
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 02:42:33
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Apr 21, 2024 07:37:55
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      • value: gabriele accorsi
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      • fileAs: Winawer, Melodie
      • bioText: Melodie Winawer is the author of The Scribe of Siena, which has been translated into German, Czech, Polish, and Norwegian to critical acclaim. She is also the author of the forthcoming Anticipation. A physician-scientist and associate professor of neurology at Columbia University, Melodie has published over fifty articles and contributed to several anthologies. To find the energy to write, she relies on unflagging enthusiasm and green tea. Melodie lives with her spouse and their three children in both Brooklyn, New York and Ludlow, Vermont.
      • name: Melodie Winawer
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title
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fullDescription
"Like Outlander with an Italian accent." —Real Simple

"A detailed historical novel, a multifaceted mystery, and a moving tale of improbable love." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A NEW YORK POST MUST-READ BOOK

Readers of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring...will be swept away by the spell of medieval Siena" (Library Journal, starred review) in this transporting love story and gripping historical mystery.
Accomplished neurosurgeon Beatrice Trovato knows that her deep empathy for her patients is starting to impede her work. So when her beloved brother passes away, she welcomes the unexpected trip to the Tuscan city of Siena to resolve his estate, even as she wrestles with grief. But as she delves deeper into her brother's affairs, she discovers intrigue she never imagined—a 700-year-old conspiracy to decimate the city.

As Beatrice explores the evidence further, she uncovers the journal and paintings of the fourteenth-century artist Gabriele Accorsi. But when she finds a startling image of her own face, she is suddenly transported to the year 1347. She awakens in a Siena unfamiliar to her, one that will soon be hit by the Plague.

Yet when Beatrice meets Accorsi, something unexpected happens: she falls in love—not only with Gabriele, but also with the beauty and cadence of medieval life. As the Plague and the ruthless hands behind its trajectory threaten not only her survival but also Siena's very existence, Beatrice must decide in which century she belongs.

The Scribe of Siena is the captivating story of a brilliant woman's passionate affair with a time and a place that captures her in an impossibly romantic and dangerous trap—testing the strength of fate and the bonds of love.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from March 13, 2017
        Winawer’s debut is a detailed historical novel, a multifaceted mystery, and a moving tale of improbable love. When Beatrice Trovato’s brother suddenly passes away in Italy, she leaves her New York home and demanding work as a neurosurgeon to sort out his affairs and retrieve his research on the Black Death in Siena. What she doesn’t expect is to be pulled into his studies, as she compulsively attempts to complete what he started. Stumbling across fresco painter Gabriele Accorsi, who mysteriously seems to have painted her into his work, she finds herself physically transported across time into the 14th century, just before the plague strike. The vivid descriptions of the people, way of life, food, and other details of medieval Italy deepen the plot, making the book a truly immersive experience. The novel dramatically brings to life a period in Siena’s history that is still overwhelmingly neglected by historians—it is still unclear why Siena was ravaged by the plague in ways unseen in other Italian cities. Winawer has created a prodigious, vibrant tale of past and present that transports readers and fills in the historical gaps. This is a marvelous work of research and invention.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        March 1, 2017
        A New York neurosurgeon finds herself in medieval Siena facing a career change, plague, and true love.Beatrice Trovato, 33, is ripped from her surgical work by the untimely death of her brother, Ben, a historian who was researching a persistent mystery about his adopted home, Siena, Italy: why, besides misfortune, rats, and fleas, had post-pandemic Siena never quite recovered its prominence as a Tuscan city-state compared to its rival, Florence, which the bubonic plague also attacked? Taking a sabbatical from brain surgery, Beatrice moves into Ben's centuries-old Siena row house and sifts through dusty archives, intent on continuing her brother's quest. While in a church, perusing the journal of early Renaissance fresco master Gabriele Accorsi, she blacks out and somehow (the physics of time travel are not this novel's concern) wakes up in 1347 Siena. There follows an entertaining junket as Beatrice searches for the proper medieval garb (narrowly escaping the Sienese wardrobe police), enjoys the food (Ur-farm-to-table), and communicates fluently with 14th-century Tuscans using modern Italian (linguistic niceties are also not a concern). Her rare, for a woman, literacy skills land Beatrice a job as a scribe at Siena's Ospedale, the local monastery/hospital/poorhouse, where she copies Dante manuscripts, legal contracts, and other documents. She meets Gabriele, who's been hired to paint a religious mural outside her workroom wall. After he rescues her from a monastery fire, their very chaste courtship begins. Accorsi had already imagined her and painted her into other work, which she had puzzled over in the 21st century. When he takes her home to meet his family, they turn out to live in Ben's future house. Meanwhile a subplot reveals more about the enigmas Ben was pursuing--involving the Florentine Medicis. A trip to Sicily, where the plague begins, more time travel, life-threatening illness, and other trials, virtual and literal, ensue before the novel's questions, mainly involving personal lives as opposed to Back to the Future ripple effects, are answered. The realities of day-to-day existence in 1340s Europe are so viscerally represented that readers will readily accept the fanciful premise.

        COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        Starred review from February 15, 2017

        This first novel is a captivating portrait of medieval Siena as seen through the eyes of a 21st-century neurosurgeon. Beatrice Trovato attempts to re-create her late brother's research into the transmission of the Black Death in the mid-14th century and mysteriously finds herself living in the city months before the plague is set to begin its ravage across Europe. She is wrapped up in Siena's particularly severe encounter with the disease, and whether that virulence might have been somehow deliberate. As she moves from protecting her brother's legacy to experiencing it for herself, she falls in love with the medieval city and with an artist named Gabriele Accorsi. Running afoul of nefarious evildoers in both time periods, Beatrice is forced to choose between the life she knows and the place and people she has come to love. VERDICT This mixture of history, time travel, and romance with its hint of mystery will remind historical fiction readers of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Tracy Chevalier's The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Sf fans will recall Connie Willis's The Doomsday Book. Lovers of meticulously researched historical fiction and time-travel narratives will be swept away by the spell of medieval Siena.--Marlene Harris, Reading Reality, LLC, Duluth, GA

        Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity
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shortDescription
"Like Outlander with an Italian accent." —Real Simple

"A detailed historical novel, a multifaceted mystery, and a moving tale of improbable love." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A NEW YORK POST MUST-READ BOOK

Readers of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring...will be swept away by the spell of medieval Siena" (Library Journal, starred review) in this transporting love story and gripping historical mystery.
Accomplished neurosurgeon Beatrice Trovato knows that her deep empathy for her patients is starting to impede her work. So when her beloved brother passes away, she welcomes the unexpected trip to the Tuscan city of Siena to resolve his estate, even as she wrestles with grief. But as she delves deeper into her brother's affairs, she discovers intrigue she never imagined—a 700-year-old conspiracy to decimate the...
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      • description: Fiction / Literary