SuitabookChangeling
Philippa Gregory
- Reading
- Discuss the historical rules and supernatural beliefs as the story unfolds, then pause after violent or coercive scenes. Compare what the characters believe with what they learn, and examine whose perspective receives authority.
- Themes
- Women, inheritance and authority: Isolde loses her lands and is placed under restrictive medieval expectations, while Isolde and Ishraq are described as independent and able to think for themselves. The narrative appears to contrast sexist structures with women who resist them, though the extent of its challenge is not fully established.
- Religion and accusations: Luca investigates evil for an Inquisitor, while Isolde and Ishraq are accused of witchcraft in a religious setting shaped by vows and church hierarchy. Religious authority is presented as powerful and fallible: investigation initially produces accusations, but Luca learns that the apparent evil lies elsewhere.
- Difference and othering: Ishraq’s Moorish background is contrasted with Isolde’s Western European Christian upbringing, while a creature is targeted because people assume it is a werewolf. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Be prepared for torture, burning, poisoning, threatened execution, a mob targeting a supposed werewolf, a near-sexual assault and two deaths. Sexual material is limited but includes desire, an affair, flirting and brief chaste contact.