Katharina: Deliverance: Compelling and evocative coming of age story - courage, resilience and determination in 16th c Saxony. (Katharina Luther Series Book 1)

I absolutely loved this novel about Katharina, Martin Luther's eventual help-mate and wife. It is beautifully written in well-chosen prose. Katharina is a perfectly depicted personality. I read it as much for the quality of writing as the narrative which is page-turning. The novel takes the reader on a fascinating journey from Katherina's childhood, her placement in a nunnery, her vows to her escape with a group of other evangelical nuns influenced by Luther's teachings to her life outside in the world, among Lutherans. The nunnery is vividly depicted and provides one of my favourite sections of this novel. It's all good by the way. However, I was fascinated by the 'fluttering hands' as the nuns communicated, and their daily life which is not at all laboured but well integrated into the story's narrative drive. As a medievalist, I felt Margaret Skea really enlivened the nunnery and the bond existing between its inhabitants. Skea can really inhabit her characters particularly Katharina whose story this is. Without providing spoilers there is much tension after Katharina's escape into the world. She is like the impoverished relative who is wanted, yet not wanted, the woman who to be accepted in society must accept a husband as was the attitude in this time. Her projected romantic life is fraught with difficulty. Events in Germany become dangerous as peasants revolt against masters and massacres follow. Again this is not overly narrated but deftly integrated into Katharina's engaging story. Its a page-turning novel containing many lovely sentences and it satisfactorily ends with hope. I anticipate and wait patiently for a second novel which will complete Katharina's story.

I particularly enjoy historical novels, that mix of fact and fiction which can create a satisfying whole. Margaret Skea's book brings to life Katharina von Bora, the woman who married the biblical reformer Martin Luther and who lived through the Reformation - not only within the church but in the wider society of ideas and mores. Although little is known of the real woman, Skea brings Katharina to life, first as a tiny child incarcerated in various nunneries (for the convenience of her family) and then as the young woman who flees this imprisonment, spurred on by the enlightened views of Dr Martin Luther which were then taking the country by storm. Katharina is a fascinating character, shy but determined, unhappy but hopeful, straightforward but resourceful and cunning when necessary. This novel is the first of two which together will tell the full story of Katharina's life. "Deliverance" takes us up to the moment of her perhaps unlikely marriage to Martin Luther, after other possible romances and unions have come to nothing. Will it prove to be an act of desperation from a woman anxious to make some place for herself in the society from which she was barred for nearly twenty years? Before reading the book I knew very little about this period, but thanks to the author's easy skill at evoking the past, I now look forward to reading the sequel.

This is a very well written book and I particularly like the main character Katharina. We follow her life from 5 years old when her step mother appears in the family and Katharina gets sent to a convent, through her life as a nun and her later escape thanks to Martin Luther and her eventual marriage to him. I didn't at first realise that the story is based in fact and that Martin is a well documented figure. Not so much is known about Katharina and this is a fictional account of her life based on what little is known. I didn't find the front cover appealing so wouldn't have picked this in a book shop but I did enjoy reading it. I did feel in parts that I got bogged down and confused by some of the religious detail and found my mind wandering so I had to re-read parts, but that is because religious history doesn't interest me so anyone with an interest would really enjoy this book. I will be reading the next part as I do want to find out how her life with Martin develops.

This historical novel is written from the point of view of Katharina von Bora, a young woman stowed away in a convent after her mother had died. It belonged to an enclosed order in which the nuns could communicate only by sign language, a cruel fate for a girl with a lively, questioning mind. However thanks to the novel’s point of view, we are allowed to share Katharina’s silent questioning of the sermons of the bombastic preachers and the other nuns’ unshakeable adherence to ritual.In the Germany of the time, demands for reform, especially by such radical preachers as Martin Luther, were stirring up religious attitudes, and, as a result, a dozen of the younger nuns break free from their vows and their physical confinement. Luther’s questioning of the status quo is similar to that of Katharina; the two are matched in mindset and eventually become man and wife.Feminism! What’s that? The word wouldn’t be coined for a good 500 years, but it’s interesting to look at the unquestioned place of women in European society back then – unless, like Katharina, they had the guts to shatter the bonds of expectation. The author of this well-written book, in which the reader identifies and empathises with Katharina, successfully bridges the gap between the 16th and 21st centuries, reminding us that strong individuals have been struggling for five hundred years or more to question the accepted social and religious conventions which reinforce male domination of their lives.

Margaret Skea is an accomplished writer of historical literary fiction. I enjoyed this novel even though I found reading about Katharina life after the death of her mother heart wrenching. But she overcomes adversity. Interesting to read about Martin Luther as I didn't know much about him.

I like historical fiction because of the reminder it provides that people who lived long ago—500 years ago in this case—were just like ourselves. Margaret Skea heightens the impression of immediacy by writing in present tense, transplanting modern sensibility into an era long before this kind of writing existed. But again, that's not jarring. It fits.Another attraction, of course, is the opportunity to learn something about moments in history about which most of us have only a vague understanding. Of course I knew of Martin Luther, who took issue with established Church doctrine and launched the Protestant Reformation. To be honest, that's about all I knew. My seventh-grade son happens to be learning about this in school right now, and he brought forth more detail on it than I would've managed.But of course neither of us knew about Katherina, the main character of this story. Data listed in the opening pages indicate she was an historical figure, born in 1499. In 1505, at the insistence of a cruel stepmother, her father takes her away, "to school" (presumably to learn her letters, and singing, and sewing). In reality, she's deposited in a convent, with the unspoken assumption that she will spend the rest of her life there. This, it seems, is a fairly routine practice by which families get rid of inconvenient children. (It's better, I suppose, than just turning them loose to fend for themselves, as in the ancient Hansel and Gretel story. Also perhaps better than the situation with orphanages in developing countries even today. Katherine does, after all, grow up in a nurturing environment. But with the passage of time she yearns to join the outside world. For nuns, that had never been an option.)Luckily, her formative years coincide with Luther's challenge to religious authority. Finding no Scriptural basis for schemes like selling indulgences (which were advertised as a way of easing one's deceased forebears into heaven), Luther is calling the Church out as being more interested in power than in its role as a source of ministry. The controversy is soon raging throughout Europe, and despite living apart from the general population, the cloistered women are very much affected by it. Divisions appear among them, and she says, "I, who have counted half a dozen of those closest to my own age as my particular friends, sense a new distance between us."Later, having renounced her vows and left the convent, she observes "open disunity" that's still more unsettling, especially as she'd been taught to value peace. Some people openly disapprove of what she has done. Worse are those who might otherwise have become very close but who are more concerned with protecting their social position. (She does have an inner circle of reliable friends, the most influential being Luther himself. He's described as being "full of vision" but also "abrupt" and of course susceptible to recognizable human weaknesses, such as writing inflammatory material when angry.)Very soon, the situation fragments still further, with fierce disputes among competing reformers, each supported by furious partisans who have no interest in compromise. The disagreements appear to revolve around whether, and how, to repurpose the founding documents of their faith (the Scriptures) for current purposes. Again, this amounts to corruption in Luther's view.Continuing strife is wearing him down, and that's when a solution for both of them becomes obvious. Katharina is known to history because she became his wife.While I'm not sure the dialog feels entirely natural, I of course have no idea what dialog would have been like in 16th century Germany. I do believe Margaret Skea made her best effort at rendering it, and for example am willing to bet it's an actual quotation when Luther quips, "I can hardly deny the infallibility of the Pope and claim it for myself."And really, that's the basis of what happens. Corruption exists when people entrusted with authority claim more than they should. They misuse it to control the behavior of others and to acquire illicit power and benefits for themselves. (Frankly, to draw on modern germ theory for an analogy, their effect on the institution in question is like that of a pathogen invading a host.) And someone daring to stand against them meets no end of resistance.This observation recalls my first reason cited above for liking historical fiction. There is nothing new under the sun. The similarity between the upheavals occurring in this book and those in our own news feeds is both astonishing and sobering.

I will need to reread this to catch it all, but I truely enjoyed the story and look forward to reading the second book. I'm afraid I had 10 thousand interruptions while reading this, so this review doesn't do it justice. The characters are believable and well formed. It did a great job speaking my curiosity about Martin Luther.

The author brought the Middle Ages to life! I didn't know the story behind Martin Luther and the Reformation, but seeing from Frau Luther's eyes made it much more enjoyable for me! Her early life was heartbreaking. Can't wait to read the sequel! 17+

I really liked this book. It was a subject I wasn't familiar with but I am going to read others about this historical couple.

I really enjoyed this book, can't wait to read more of Margaret Skea's books.