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This Passing World

The Journal of Geoffrey Chaucer

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It is 1398, and all of Europe is abuzz about the duel to be fought in September between Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, to settle the question of which one has committed treason against King Richard II. But, unexpectedly, Geoffrey Chaucer, courtier and well-known poet, is drawn into the intrigue surrounding the impending duel and compelled to perform an act so heinous that he is shaken to the core.

The journal Chaucer begins to describe these events and keeps for the remaining two and a half years of his life chronicles his unlikely rise as the son of a middle-class wine broker to become not only the pre-eminent poet of his age but the brother-in-law of John of Gaunt, uncle to the king, at times the most powerful man in England and, with his three wives, the ancestor of every ruler of England since the year 1400.

This novel provides a fascinating look into life in late 14th-century England, the women and men Chaucer loves, the intrigues of the Richardian court, and what compels someone who holds some of the most important jobs in the English bureaucracy to spend his nights writing poetry that is still being read and studied 600 years after his death.

©2019 Michael Herzog (P)2019 by Blackstone Publishing
Biographical Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Biography England Royalty
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I quite enjoyed this one without ever really caring what happened next. The notes were a pointless interruption. The narrator was interesting. I wasn’t sure if he was Australian or just a bit mid-Atlantic but I laughed out loud at his portrayal of a Welshman. Obviously said Welshman had spent a lot of time in Glasgow. Luckily it’s a short scene.

Good but not great.

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