Damask Farland, hija de un rico abogado cuyas tierras lindan con la abadía de San Bruno, se siente cautivada por el niño expósito que los monjes han hecho suyo. Descubierto en el altar la mañana de Navidad, Bruno se transforma en un gran hombre, del que Damask se enamora sin reticencias… solo para que la destroce su crueldad. Damask, la rosa exótica, cuenta la historia de su linaje, de su despertar al amor, de su corazón deshecho en el trasfondo de la Inglaterra de Enrique VIII, el rey que creó un cisma por poner los ojos sobre Ana Bolena. Y también la de Bruno, un hombre a quien todos creen un profeta y un santo hasta que un escandaloso secreto ve la luz en la abadía.

The first novel of the 20 novel series Daughters of England, which I suppose makes Damask the matriarch. I've read novels in the series out of order so I am going back to fill in the holes and perhaps figure out who is related to whom. Damask is a strangely likeable character, she is intelligent, dotes on her kindly father who makes sure she is educated and yet seems totally unaware of the things happening around her. Even as she grows up, there is a child-like naivete about her. She is blinded by Bruno and his saintly persona to the point of obviously missing his source of wealth until it is far too late. Carr's scheme for all these novels is pretty clear from this first one; she has a stock set of characters and simple decides which will be the heroine of the story and then fills in the rest. The historical context can be interesting and she uses it better here than in some other novels but the plot twists and turns seem much the same. At least the men here don't reach the truly odious qualities in some other novels but I do have to wonder at her general vision of life and relationships. Despite that, it's a fairly engaging read, which I may forget entirely by the time I get to the 20th book of the series, approximately 400 years in the future.

I like the concept of setting this novel during the reigns of three Tudor monarchs, ending it at the start of a fourth, but somehow it doesn’t fulfil its potential. The main plot revolves around a group of people who are affected by the changes in England’s monarchy and how one person in charge of the country can cause prosperity or ruin to the people who serve him/her.

One problem I have with this tale is the number of references to Anne Boleyn – in some cases the exact same reference is revived of seeing her on a boat – that often don’t seem relevant to the story. At times I understand the reason for comparisons but often they seem out of place.

In general this rule applies to Henry VIII’s other wives, plus the king himself and his children who succeed him. The Tudor dynasty is at times treated as a subplot. I think had this been scaled down the novel would’ve had a smoother feel to it, as the main focus would be on the principle characters of the piece. Of those main characters, most are likeable, but none stand out prominently in any way.

Another matter that lets this book down, which I’ve noticed other reviewers have picked up on, is that many outcomes are predictable. I won’t give any examples that may be deemed as spoilers, but will mention that I knew immediately from which source the character Bruno was using to give him such wealth. With this and other aspects being obvious, or at least seeming most likely, there wasn’t much suspense.

This isn’t to say the book proved a complete let down though. At times it was engaging, even absorbing, but these positive aspects were not consistent enough. In short, I found this worth reading, but wouldn’t return to it for a second time. ( )

"I was born in the September of 1523, nine months after the monks had discovered the child in the crib on that Christmas morning. My birth was, my father used to say, another miracle: He was not young at the time being forty years of age ... My mother, whose great pleasure was tending her gardens, called me Damask, after the rose which Dr. Linacre, the King's physician, had brought into England that year."

So begins the story narrated by Damask Farland, the daughter of an affluent lawyer whose considerable acreage adjoins the property of St. Bruno's Abbey. It is the story of a life inextricably enmeshed with that of Bruno - the mysterious child found in the abbey's creche on Christmas morning of 1522. So it was that Bruno came to be raised by the monks - becoming a man at once handsome and saintly, but also brooding and ominous, plagued by the secrets of his birth - secrets which slowly begin to encroach on the sanctuary of the majestic abbey that Bruno increasingly comes to dominate.

This is also the story of an engaging family, the Farlands, living during the reign of King Henry VIII. This is the story of a father wise enough to understand that his own happiness - as well as the happiness of his family - remained at the King's pleasure; a wife, twenty years his junior, and a daughter whose intelligence is constantly in conflict with the mesmerizing influence Bruno has over her and her destiny.

While The Miracle at St. Bruno's is very much the story of Damask and Bruno, it is also the story of sixteenth-century England - an era of vicious corruption and deep tenderness, when periods of violent brutality follow a time of deep contentment, presided over by one of England's most fascinating monarchs, Henry VIII.

I must say that I enjoyed reading this book - as I do so many of Philippa Carr's books. I have always been interested in anything to do with Henry VIII, and found that Philippa Carr's writing was historically accurate. While I found the story to be a tad simplistic at times, I still enjoyed it very much. In my opinion, The Miracle at St. Bruno's by Philippa Carr definitely deserves an A! ( )