Review of Sarah Kennedy’s The Altarpiece

A terrific review of Sarah Kennedy’s forthcoming historical novel, The Altarpiece at the Southern Humanities Review, the first of a compelling series The Cross and The Crown, set in 16th century England. Here is a snippet from the review:

“The historical record is rarely a democratic one. Infrequently do the voices of those deemed subservient by and to the ruling elites speak from the past…Yet, in her meticulously researched, deftly written, and effectively plotted novel, The Altarpiece—the first book of The Cross and the Crown series—Sarah Kennedy gives both voice and echo to the women at the Priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire, England. Every woman a professed sister, each one has entered the convent for disparate and ultimately pragmatic reasons not always related to purely religious faith. The priory the women inhabit, ancestral home of their proud, stubborn, and wonderfully human prioress (as ornery and as principled as Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge), is in imminent danger of violent appropriation by the sword-wielding henchmen of Henry VIII, self-ordained head of the Church in England.”