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Keturah and Lord Death
Keturah and Lord Death
Author: Martine Leavitt
U.S. National Book Award 2006 nominee for Young People's Literature! 2007 Saskatchewan Young Readers' Choice Willow Awards nominee Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award shortlist 2008 Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice Starred Selection, 2007 Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic shortlist Booklist's ...  more » I will tell you . . . a story of magic and love, of daring and death, and one to comfort your heart. It will be the truest story I have ever told. Now listen, and tell me if it is not so." Keturah Reeve is a beautiful young woman of sixteen who lives with her grandmother in a cottage near the forest owned by Lord Temsland. Keturah is renowned in the village for her captivating storytelling, and this beautifully woven novel is a response to a request from Keturah's eager audience for yet another of her fascinating tales. She tells of her experience of being lost in the forest, her eventual meeting with a dark figure on horseback who is Lord Death and her bargaining with him for her life-and for the lives of the villagers who are threatened by an onset of the plague. With its richly textured medieval setting, Keturah's story exposes the tensions and desires of the villagers, the dangers that loom in their future and how they place Keturah's life in jeopardy. Keturah's escalating bargains with Lord Death allow her to protect her friends and reveal to them their true talents and destinies. But even as she negotiates with Death, she becomes more isolated from the people she is seeking to protect and seems less and less likely to achieve the dreams of her own heart. The startling resolution of the novel confirms Martine Leavitt's reputation as a treasure of a writer, a storyteller who can weave magnificent spells. Leavitt confronts readers with issues and revelations that, while they occur in a setting far from their own experience, bear the intimacy of next door.
ISBN-13: 9780889953703
ISBN-10: 0889953708
Pages: 192
Reading Level: All Ages
Rating:
  • Currently 4.8/5 Stars.
 2

4.8 stars, based on 2 ratings
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 4
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

jai avatar reviewed Keturah and Lord Death on + 310 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I sped over to the library to pick up a copy of this book after reading a review of it online. This reads as a mix of Neil Gaiman's Stardust, 1001 Nights, and some well-known, often-told fairy tale. Keturah is a young village girl who follows a stag into the forest and gets lost for a few days. Eventually she sees Death come for her, but being the storyteller of the village, she tells Lord Death a story and then refuses to tell the ending unless she gets one more day of life and then, she promises, she will finish the story. What follows is a charming story about her village and the people in it, and of Keturah, and her relationships with her friends and family and with Lord Death. Told from the first person point of view this story reminds me of the first time I ever experienced a fairytale. While this is a young adult novel, it felt like it was written with no particular age in mind. A gem.
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althea avatar reviewed Keturah and Lord Death on + 774 more book reviews
I chose to read this book after 'Rebekah' because in that story, Keturah is Abraham's concubine after he is widowed. But the Keturah in this book has no connection to the Biblical figure at all.
This book is a Gothic Folktale, relating in a very pure, fairytale style a story of a girl who follows an enchanted hart into the forest and meets with Lord Death. '1001 Nights'-style, she holds off the handsome and regal Death by telling him a story and withholding the ending, eliciting promises from him that she will be spared if she finds her true love. With a charm from the village witch, and now feared by her neighbors due to her connection to the uncanny, she desperately seeks both for love and to fend off the plague (that Death has prophecied) from her village.
Leavitt skillfully weaves together elements from many traditional tales with a good dose of originality and a smooth, enjoyable writing style. The only problem here is that I kept finding jarring inconsistencies in her portrayal of the life of the village - I think the book would have benefited from a closer adherence to the actualities of life in medieval England, since that is where it is ostensibly set. (If food is in such short supply, villagers would not be 'portly'; if lemons are worth their weight in gold, oranges would not be worthless; where did all the resources for a fair and town cleanup suddenly come from, etc, etc.)
Still, I loved the overall concept and aesthetic of the book, and would definitely read more from this author.
bombschell avatar reviewed Keturah and Lord Death on + 214 more book reviews
A lovely, endearing fairy tale, although I don't agree with the BOOKLISt review-the ending is not hard to guess. But that hardly matters. Written in the first person, it's a tale that transports you back to some ancient village, some time long ago. Nicely done!

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