The Inquisitor’s Wife ~ Jeanne Kalogridis

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Pages: 400

Year: 2012

Rating: ««½

Book Blurb:

In 1480 Seville, Marisol, a fearful young conversa (descendant of Spanish Jews forced to convert to Christianity), is ashamed of her Jewish blood. Forced into a sham marriage with a prosecutor for the new Inquisition, Marisol soon discovers that her childhood sweetheart, Antonio, has just returned to Seville and is also working for the inquisitors. When Marisol’s father is arrested and tortured during Spain’s first auto da fe, Marisol comes to value her Jewish heritage and vows to fight the Inquisition. When she discovers that her beloved Antonio is working to smuggle conversos safely out of Spain, she joins him and risks her life on behalf of her people; a passionate romance follows.

Unfortunately, Marisol does not realize that her supposedly kind and gentle inquisitor-husband has been using her all along to lead Antonio and her fellow conversos to their doom.

My thoughts:

I have to say that I was disappointed with this novel. I am normally a huge fan of Ms. Kalogridis’ work, but I definitely think that there was so much wasted potential. There were times where I found myself dozing off during the novel – it was so slow moving. There were also times where I found myself skipping sections because the story wasn’t holding my attention, and then I would have to go back and re-read the same section again. That being said, there were also parts where I felt that a more in-depth explanations and where dialogues felt unfinished.  I was hoping for so much more.

Characters were also a problem for me. I really did not like Marisol a whole lot – I found that I was not able to connect with her. I felt that she was a very one-dimensional character and quite frankly, she really didn’t have a winning personality. The other character who I had an issue with was Marisol’s husband Gabriel. The book description describes him as being “kind and gentle”, meanwhile in the book he is anything but that. Honestly, pretty much all the characters were under developed and flat.  

All of my negativity aside … there were some pretty good parts. The settings were beautifully described. There was also clearly a lot of research that went into the writing of this novel. There is a lot of interesting and informative information woven throughout the story.