The Plague~ Joanne Dahme Review

Enjoyment: ☺☺

Plot: ☺☼

Characters: ☺

Setting: ☺

Overall: ☺

Fifteen-year-old Nell's uncanny resemblance, to King Edward the Third's daughter Princess Joan, brings the orphan and her brother George from the murky streets of fourteenth century London to a grand calling--a means of protection for the Royal Family by acting as a body double in times of danger.

But as the plague that claimed the lives of Nell's parents continues to ravish England and France, and eventually takes Princess Joan herself, Nell is forced by Joan's brother, the Black Prince, to take on the princess's identity for read. Nell must carry out a plan to expand the empire by marrying the Prince of Castile. Knowing she could never permanently play the role of the Princess Nell is determined to return to England and report the truth of the Princess's death to the King.

With the help of a number of surprising characters--including a Spanish minstrel, a monk, a gravedigger, a band of merchants--and most devotedly by her brother and the young soldier Henry, Nell must escape not only the Black Prince and his army of rats, but the plague as well . . .

~*~*~*~*~*~

A favorite line of fifteen-year-old Nell is that Joan and her family were chosen by God to become royalty. That right there should tell you how much I liked this book. A big fat none at all. I have to admit that I am not religious. At all. I don't contemplate where I will go once I die or whether there really is a heaven or hell. I am not particularly morbid like that and I don't think that just because I believe that someone died for my sins will put me in a good place. I realize that many people do believe that but I try not to judge because I like to believe that every car on the road is out to kill me whether the car is being driven or not. But that is for another conversation.

Right now I am talking about The Plague. It was boring. Also does anyone else notice how Joanne Dahme almost always has a character with a name very close to her own. At least in the few books that I have read that has been true.

This book was boring. I felt that Nell was not really in the spotlight so much as the rats. I just felt like there was an over emphasis on the rats because of the fact that none of the people in that time knew that the black plague was being spread by the rats that had been bitten by the fleas that carried the disease. I have read another book set during this time called The Queen's Daughter by Susan Coventry that is told in Joan's POV. If you really like books set in this time I would recommend that you check them out.