I really enjoy Brooks' books; I have read all but the Pulitzer Prize winner - hmmmmm!
This one did not disappoint. Set in Rural England during 1665-1666, the story is loosely based on a real village and how it reacted during the Black Plague and its infectious devastation. The language here is appropriate for the times, so may trip up a modern reader, but you get into the cadence pretty easily. Anna Frith is a maid to the local minister and helps out at events held at the "big house" up the hill sometimes too. Both positions give her access to very different types of lives and reactions when neighbors start dying horrible deaths. Could Anna herself have thwarted the spread of the plague? After all, her lodger was the first to die - a tailor with lots of bolts of cloth.....
Really interesting how Brooks weaves in the superstitions and caste definitions of the times, how people begin to react to the stress of watching all your neighbors die and how unlikely friendships will blossom out of necessity - but also manages to give her heroine such an interesting (if not really believable) ending. I would recommend all of Brooks' books (The People of the Book was my favorite, but also loved Caleb's Crossing and The Secret Chord), and The Year of Wonders is now among them. Be sure to read all the info at the end about what really happened - and then say of prayer of thanks for antibiotics!!!! Could be a good book club book - definitely great for lovers of historical fiction!
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