I enjoyed the premise of this book, but it honestly felt more like a first draft. It starts off well, but then as things progress it falls apart. The main characters fall flat. The love story reminded me of some teen books where it's insta love and not much else. There was one point in the middle where the mother is mentioned and up until then I thought the mother was dead, as she was never brought up.

A Canopy of Stars by Steven Taylor was both accurate to its synopsis on the back of the book, and delightfully surprising. My thanks to Taylor, an experienced author, NetGalley, and Sapere books for the advanced copy. A Canopy of Stars was published on December 10, 2020, and more information about the novel and the author can be found at https://www.stephentaylorauthor.com/.
I found this novel to be gripping, uncomfortable at times, and well-researched. Julia Carmichael, educated in the law by her father, is taking notes in court when a defendant comes in who she can’t keep her eyes off of. He’s educated, well-spoken, and appears to be innocent. He’s sentenced to death for the crime of stealing a sheep, and Julia believes that the judge’s prejudice is responsible for the harsh sentence. Getting her barrister father involved, she sets out to recuse his sentence.
David Neander finds himself in the dock when he’s accused of stealing a sheep, when all he did was carry it when someone asked. Sentenced to death, he’s surprised to find that his only hope at salvation comes from a pretty girl with an influential father. When she asks him to tell her his backstory to help paint his character in court, his story of tragedy and hope is told in reflection throughout the book.
I will not ruin the ending of this book for you by saying anything that could give away the conclusion; I will only say that it surprised me but I thought it was within the bounds of realism, and I really appreciated that. All of this book, in fact, felt very realistic to me. In real time, I thought the attitudes of the judge and jury of the court were appropriate and well-depicted, and in reflection, none of David’s experiences seemed beyond possible. I feel that this shows a maturity of Taylor’s writing; he knows how to create a gripping tale without going over-the-top.
I feel that the plot of this book was well-written; the flashes between past and present tense really worked for the storyline, and both were woven together artfully. David’s backstory was, at times, uncomfortable to read. He was a Jew living in Germany in the 1800’s, and the status of Jews was so low at the time that they were not even allowed to be German citizens. He was the sole survivor of his immediate family of the Hep! Hep! Riots, which were instigated by the German public upon the suggestion of Jewish emancipation and citizenship.
The Hep! Hep! Riots and attitudes toward Jewish people in the 1800’s really struck me because we mostly learn about anti-semitism as a relatively modern attitude that seemed to develop prior to WWII (or, at least, that’s how the topic had been introduced to me). I was surprised and saddened to see that this had been a long-standing German attitude. It does help to explain to me how Hitler was so successful in painting the Jews as anathema; the attitude was probably ingrained in a fair bit of the German population already. If you’d like to read more about the Hep! Hep! Riots, take a look at these sources:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hep-hep-riots
https://jewish-history-online.net/article/zimmermann-ludwig-holst

You may get a little uncomfortable reading Neader’s backstory, and I think that’s okay. It means that the book is well-written and that you are not a robot. The way his story is told and his life unfolds is really interesting, and adds a lot of texture to the plot. It also allows us to see why Julia feels so strongly for him, and how she might be attracted to him even though he is technically a criminal. Although Julia is raised in an upper-middle to upper-class family, she proves to be sensible throughout this book and resourceful in her planning. I enjoyed following her as well as David because she is strategic and well aware of the challenges she faces, but doesn’t back away from any of them.
All in all, I really liked A Canopy of Stars by Steven Taylor. It was more of a suspenseful novel rather than the mysteries I usually read, but it was very engaging and I was satisfied by the end. It was well-researched, and I learned a lot throughout Julia and David’s journey. If you’re looking for an exciting book with a tinge of romance, look no further than A Canopy of Stars.

A chance encounter, an unlikely romance …

London, 1823. David Neander, a young Jewish immigrant, is on trial for his life at the Old Bailey. His crime? He has been charged with the theft of half of a sheep carcass. Julia Carmichael is in the public gallery that day: she clerks for her lawyer father but is unable to sit in the court. While waiting for her father’s case, she sees David’s case. She sees the case of a young man, with limited English, found guilty and condemned to death. Julia decides that she wants to help him. Can she save his life?

The story moves between David and Julia in London in 1823 and David’s previous life in Frankfurt (1819) and Dortmund (1821). In London, David is granted a retrial, but the odds seem to be stacked against him.

In those chapters set in Frankfurt and Dortmund we learn about the discrimination David has faced, and the tragic consequences for his family of antisemitic riots in Frankfurt. Heartbreaking. But David does not want to share details of his past with Julia, which makes it difficult for her to try to organise his defence – especially when the same judge who sentenced him to death is presiding over his second trial.

While I enjoyed this story, which takes some details from a case of theft in 1790, the characters never really came to life for me. For example, even allowing for fictional licence, I found it difficult to accept Julia having quite as much autonomy as the story allows. I found David’s story heartbreakingly sad, but I struggled at times to ‘see’ the character behind the description.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Sapere Books for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for
review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith