Today I am pleased to say I am closing thr tour for Virgin&Child by Maggie Hamand on behalf of Helen Richardson PR and Barbican Press. Thanks to both Helen and Barbican Press for the copy of the book to bring you my honest and unbiased review today.
A genre-busting, gender-bending Vatican thriller. What happens when everything you know is thrown into doubt?
And you’re the Pope?
The recently elected Irish Pope Patrick has plans for his future Church. Then he is attacked in St Peter’s Square. Cardinals turn against him. Shocking revelations threaten his traditional status and his faith. In this novel where nothing is as it seems, Catholicism and modern morality are held in tension. Pope Patrick has to face challenges and make choices he could never have imagined.
‘This is a strange and strangely touching novel and it is also written with great elegance and authority. It tackles head on some of the most challenging issues for the Roman Catholic Church around gender and sexuality and at the same time has some of the loveliest, most persuasive, writing about personal prayer that I have ever encountered in fiction.’ – Sara Maitland
‘Virgin and Child cleverly merges crime with Catholicism and piety with a dangerous love. Pope Patrick, the Irish Pope, is famed for his humanity but unaware of the subversive forces plotting his destruction. The novel is wonderfully original and absorbing, from the halls of the Vatican to its explosive conclusion.’ – Mary Flanagan
Virgin & Child by Maggie Hamand intrigued me from the minute I read the synopsis. A thriller that slowly works its way into your head as you grapple with the unusual yet original plotline.
I am not religious at all, in anyway and I found the troubles of Pope Patrick, the first Irish Pope in hundreds of years, to almost be mind bending. In fact troubles is a massive underestimation! He is a Pope who upholds the traditional ideas of Catholicism – he is against the ordination of women, doesn’t want to understand transsexuality and believes that abortion is still a sin. All good stances for a Roman Catholic Pope I hear you say…until the day Pope Patrick is told by his doctor he is actually intersex, and pregnant!
This makes him reevaluate his own beliefs. Patrick gradually begins to realise the dilemmas facing women worldwide, the same dilemmas he railed against before his discovery. The Vatican isn’t one to take things lying down so put a plan in place and they don’t care who gets taken down in the implementation of it.
Maggie Hamand definitely dots all the it’s and crosses the t’s too in this detailed and vivid story. I could tell she has put immense research in to get this mind blowing story perfect for the reader. I felt every emotion Pope Patrick experienced along with his moral dilemmas after he is given his jaw dropping news.
The suspense the story emits as Pope Patrick has to decide what is important to him in the position he finds himself. As I started this I wondered how much I would really enjoy it. The synopsis was intriguing as I said. I just hoped the story wouldn’t be too bogged down and bore me. Well, to my surprise I was so interested in the events throughout the book the pages just flew.
As I finished the book, I found myself still thinking about it and I even went on to do a bit of googling to discover things I wasn’t to know as I began Virgin & Child. Maggie Hamand definitely created a perfectly paced story with characters you can connect with (even if he is a Pope). In a world where you can be anything be you is what comes to mind after I read this.
About the Author
Maggie Hamand is a London-based author and journalist. Her award-winning novel The Resurrection of the Body has been optioned for film and television. Maggie followed a degree in Biochemistry and a Master’s in Theology with a PhD in Creative Writing, and lectures at the University of Hull. She is the author of the best-selling Creative Writing for Dummies.
As a publisher, Maggie founded and ran the acclaimed independent The Maia Press. Maggie’s home is in Hackney, while Normandy provides a writing retreat.
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 