‘It is very shameful that children, especially defenceless young girls, are pushed into the nunneries. Shame on the unmerciful parents who treat their own so cruelly.’ Martin Luther

Publication: Sanderling Books, 18 October 2017

Source: review copy from the author

My rating: 4*

Summary from Goodreads:

Germany 1505

Following the death of her mother and her father’s remarriage, five-year-old Katharina is placed in the convent at Brehna. She will never see her father again. 
Sixty-five miles away, at Erfurt in Thuringia, Martin Luder, a promising young law student, turns his back on a lucrative career in order to become a monk. 

The consequences of their meeting in Wittenberg, on Easter Sunday 1523, will reverberate down the centuries and throughout the Christian world.

A compelling portrayal of Katharina von Bora, set against the turmoil of the Peasant’s War and the German Reformation … and the controversial priest at its heart.

My thoughts:

I love historical fiction and Margaret Skea’s books about the Munro family, Turn of the Tide and A House Divided set in 16th century Scotland are two of the best I’ve read over the last few years. Her latest novel, Katharina: Deliverance is just as fascinating, also set in the 16th century, but this time in Germany. Katharina was the wife of Martin Luther and the book is written in the present tense from Katharina’s viewpoint and from two time periods. I like the dual aspect time line giving a glimpse of what is to come.

2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation, which was set in motion when Martin Luther, a doctor of theology at the University of Wittenberg published his 95 theses, attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences. I remembered this from school history but it was only reading Katharina: Deliverance that the period and both Katharina and Martin really came to life for me.

It’s a most moving story that transported me back in time to the 16th century and I felt as though I was inside Katharina’s mind and could feel what she was feeling.  It covers the early years of her life from 1505 up to her wedding to Martin Luther in 1525 and includes, at intervals, scenes from the end of Katharina’s life in 1552. I was fascinated and so anxious for her right from the start when as a small child, she was taken from her home and unwillingly enters the convent at Brehna. Four years later, at the age of ten, she was transferred to the Marienthron convent at  Nimbschen where her aunt was the abbess. It was a difficult change for Katherina – to a silent order where communication was by sign language. She was consecrated as a nun in 1515.

Although isolated from the outside world news of Martin Luther’s teaching reached the nuns as the abbess says:

The wind of change is blowing in the outside world and will buffet us in due time. And perhaps sooner than we think, for it is our own provincial vicar, the Reverend Dr Martin Luther, who makes the challenge, and I find myself tempted to agree with his sentiment, if not his rhetoric.

Although the Church denounced Luther and his writings and ordered his books to be burnt some of the nuns, including Katharina, were inspired by his ideas and beliefs. They escaped from the convent at Easter 1523 and arrived at Wittenburg where several families helped them settle into life outside the convent. It was here that Katharina met Luther and the next phase of her life began.

Although written in the present tense, which can often be a stumbling block for me, I love Margaret Skea’s beautifully descriptive writing in passages such as this:

The year turns, the darkness of December giving way to the brilliance of a landscape cloaked in snow. The hollows on the hill behind us are smoothed out, the river below sluggish, swollen with slush. Wind blows through the valley, piling the snow in drifts, obliterating the track, neither workers nor visitors able to reach us. Within our walls, ice hangs in long fingers from roofs and windowsills, and crusts the tops of fences. Paths turn to glass and stray stems of plants snap like kindling when trodden on. In the orchard, branches bow under the weight of snow, sweeping the ground, so that we fear for their survival, and the root vegetables we would normally harvest as we needed them are set into ground so hard they are impossible to shift. Outside, the water in the troughs freezes solid, so that fresh supplies from the well must be drawn daily for the animals, and indoors, standing water forms a thick skin overnight.

In her Author’s Note Margaret Skea states that her ‘book is a work of fiction, and though based on extensive research, the Katharina depicted here is my own interpretation’. I think it works very well weaving the historical facts into this dramatic and emotional story.  I loved it and am looking forward to the next book, Katharina: Fortitude which will be published in 2018!

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 529 KB
• Print Length: 384 pages
• Publisher: Sanderling Books (18 Oct. 2017)