A Vision of Light - Judith Merkle Riley (Margaret of Ashbury #1)

I am a bad book club member.  I was so busy waiting to catch up on Ivan Ilych that I completely forgot I was supposed to read A Vision of Light for the beginning of March.  Oops.  And Vision, while not a doorstop, also isn't short, and it's not the fly-through-it type of book, either.

Set during the middle ages, the story follows Margaret of Ashbury, a young woman who hears a Voice telling her to write a book about her experiences.  She recruits Brother Gregory, a rather pretentious wanna-be monk, to do the actual writing for her as she is illiterate.  As Margaret's story unfurls through her telling to Brother Gregory, their relationship slowly evolves from contentious almost-enemies to something more closely resembling friendship with an air of debate about it.

This is a time period that we don't see a lot of historical fiction from, and particularly not a lot of stories featuring a female main character.  Fantasy in a medieval-inspired setting is fairly common, but not straight-up medieval fiction.

Overall, I liked this story.  It's somewhat slow and doesn't always seem to have a point.  It gets off to a particularly slow beginning, with Margaret's childhood in the village of Ashbury.  Some period remain more intriguing than others--while her time at the castle is good, her ramblings with the performers can get to be a little long-winded, for example.

Brother Gregory is an interesting character.  He wants to be a monk, despite coming from a noble house and having a fighting background.  He pursues enlightenment and spends his time reveling in qualities he doesn't actually possess, like humility.  Initially, it comes across as him being extremely pretentious and unlikable, particularly as he's very opposed to Margaret writing a book and only takes the job on because he's literally starving from poverty.  However, as the book goes on, we can see him exactly as Margaret does: as well-intentioned but slightly blind to his own character, and as a character of comedy rather than opposition or frustration.  It's this shifting of view that allows Gregory to come to be a friend and sparring partner rather than an outright antagonist.  Additionally, while Gregory can be stubborn and full of himself, he also starts to accede points to Margaret as the story progresses, even if he doesn't always acknowledge them aloud, and this allowance of understanding helps him develop as a sympathetic character as well.

There are a bevy of personable (and not so personable) supporting characters in this book.  Margaret's eventual mentor is one, her first husband another.  Most of them are Margaret's "supporters," who believe in her unusual abilities and help her through hard times, and her "opponents," who decry her as a witch and try to have her tried and executed for various reasons.

I was initially very skeptical about this book.  From the cover and the premise--woman hears the voice of God, really?--I did not think that I was going to like it.  However, I found myself pleasantly surprised.  While there are some problems with pacing, I found the characters well-composed and seeing them evolve was one of the charms of this book.  Its unusual setting and featuring of a female main character, and a midwife no less (one of the earliest forms of women in STEM) made for a strong story, and I'm interested in seeing where the next one picks up.

3.5 stars out of 5.