Valerie L. (vallipow) reviewed on 12/18/2008 + 40 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

I haven't yet read Benson's The Plague Tales, so I cannot compare its sequel, The Burning Road, to it. This is a historic-fantasy novel, containing romance and aspects of a medical thriller. It alternates between 14th-century France and 21st century Massachusetts. Both settings are threatened by plagues, and in both parts of the novel brave, iconoclastic, and vulnerable physicians are trying to cure people from the pandemic diseases facing their societies while facing great personal risk.

By linking her two physicians through 600 years, Ann Benson skillfully shows us events that both connect and separate these two doctors as they struggle with medical and personal problems.

I found the modern-day chapters full of tension but not as compelling as the chapters set in ancient times; perhaps because the response to the 21st century plague seemed too Draconian, perhaps because Benson didn't present characters who were actually sick with the illness, or perhaps because it was set in the present day, and our actual present does not jibe with the present in the novel.

In contrast, the bubonic plagues of the Middle Ages are a well-documented part of European history, as are the other historic aspects of the 14th century chapters of the book, including the need for many Jews to conceal their status in order to survive in Catholic Spain and France. I liked the chapters set in the Middle Ages much better.

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