Esperanza’s Way
Book two of the Seekers Series follows Esperanza, an orphan taken in by two healers who run an herbal shop on the Camino de Santiago in 1259. A rich courtier buys belladonna but does not heed Esperanza’s warnings about its use, and the woman dies. The authorities mean to charge Esperanza with murder, so the healers send her away to Salamanca to live with a Jewish doctor’s family. She serves as a companion to the daughter, Rebecca, and helps with the medical practice.
Esperanza’s ambition is to attend the medical school in Salerno, which admits women students. After Rebecca is married, Esperanza is sent not to Salerno, as she thinks, but to Naples, where she has been sold off to pay a debt. She’s forced to tend to Adolfo, a rich old ex-pirate. She is now more or less a slave, confined to his luxurious mansion, while she tends to Adolfo’s many ills. She uses his library of medical books to research Adolfo’s symptoms. The maid/cook Dolores is brusque with Esperanza at first but eventually thaws enough that Esperanza begins teaching Dolores about herbal medicine. When Adolfo’s trader friend comes to visit, Esperanza learns that Adolfo plans to have Ibrahim sell her into prostitution. Dolores offers to help Esperanza escape to Salerno. Will Esperanza avoid capture, and can she persuade the medical school to admit her, a penniless runaway?
I knew little about Spain and Italy in that era, and enjoyed learning about medieval life. However, I found the minor characters rather flat; only Esperanza and Dolores show much development. Also, the ending is disappointing in that it telescopes major events in the characters’ lives into a few pages. Was the author rushed to finish? An interesting time and place to read about, but the narrative has some flaws.
