I generally enjoyed this one but did find it lost some of its steam midway. Some of the plot lines were a bit farfetched at times. However, the writing was very descriptive and did make me feel that I had been transported to 16th Century Venice. The author did a good job of showing how women lacked power and control, their lives subject to the whims, demands and needs of their male relatives and the rules and norms of society. But within these constraints, the author also shows how female friendship, familial bonds, and resilience helped these women cope with their lives and, in some cases, find happiness.

Thanks to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

This was a superb read! I absolutely loved the opportunity to travel back to sixteenth-century Venice and see behind the walls of the San Zaccaria convent as much as I loved the chance to see how women fared with the social stratification, class barriers and social class rigidity in this maritime republic.

I always feel the pull to read books about strong women who question social norms and push against them. In this case, 16-year-old Justina Soranzo dares to resist the choices her noble family has made for her. Putting her dreams of a rare love marriage aside and obeying her father’s request, Justina became a victim of aristocratic tradition. To be at the mercy of her father’s ill-made decision due to the pressure of his mounting debts was palpable. I felt her anxiety of being caught between that, her country on the brink of war, and being a teenager experiencing first love. I could only imagine the tremendous weight placed upon her young shoulders.

The middle part of the book made me uncomfortable. I have no doubt that these ‘things’ were going on, I just didn’t want to read about them. I skipped many pages about promiscuous nuns, a cold, uncaring father who left a loved one at the mercy of horrible people, and a sex-mad older husband who essentially abused a young girl. Ah, the secrets in La Serenissima. Shudder.

My nana always used to say that adversity always brings with it a lesson and a blessing. Justina finds this true as she is cloistered away. I loved to see her pursue every avenue to breach the convent walls and cheered her on with each attempt. As she dug deep into the recesses of her heart, she found a solution - a solution that required her to risk it all.

I could see a lot of both my sister and me in the Soranzo sisters and noted how one single decision could change the entire direction of one’s life. I loved how the author captured the essence of Venice and was engaged in the vivid detail and with the pull on my heartstrings. When the aqua alta occurs and her sister Rose visits, I was glued to the story and couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough. This would make a fantastic book club choice as it lends itself to heated discussions about women's rights and how far society has progressed since the sixteenth century.

You’ll be glad you read this book about two sisters who dared to risk it all for freedom - the freedom to love and the freedom of choice. Beware of the content warnings.

I was gifted this advance copy by Harper Collins Canada and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Before I start this review, I would just like to say that I understand the author was trying to make this as historically accurate as possible, and 13-year-olds getting married back in 1509 Venice is not unheard of, but this review is just my unfiltered reactions to this book, which honestly to me is like if the Kardashians had existed in the early 16th century.

There will be spoilers. I'm pretty much summarizing this whole book because it's really something.

The title of this book almost feels like a joke. <i>The Virgins of Venice</i>...more like Everyone is Pregnant in Venice.

The book starts off with our MC Justina, who is in love with her brother's best friend, Luca. Luca loves her too and has proposed to her and they're just waiting for Luca's father to ask Justina's father, when Justina's father decides he has other plans. Justina's family is kind of broke. Her dad is bad at business and her brother is pretty useless as well. He starts off all nice, supporting Justina and Luca, but he's pretty much a womanizer and spends most of his time with his new fraternity, planning festas and mummaries, while also flirting with their Turkish slave Madelena. At this point in Venice I guess, if you have more than one daughter, you can only really afford the dowry for one, so the rest end up as nuns at a convent... SO

The plan is now for Justina to go to a convent and take vows to become a nun since she's more into reading and writing and would make a bad wife (*insert openeyecrylaugh emote* because apparently all of bookstagram should be sent off to a convent). Meanwhile, her 13 year-old-sister, who is a Child, should marry a man who sounds like twice her age because she's beautiful and blonde and would make a better wife?? No one can argue with Justina's father, including her mother, and we spend the first few chapters in horror watching Rosa, Justina's sister, panic about having to get married. Which honestly is a huge mood.

To make matters worse, Rosa is in love with the family's Black gondolier. Now, you would think this is just a little crush. Because Rosa is only 13, there is no way it could be anything more than that. Well you thought wrong.

Anyway, for some stupid reason, and apparently there is an actual source to back this up. The Zanes (who Rosa is marrying into) have agreed to consummate the marriage before the actual wedding. Why? I have no clue, but I'm gonna say its for the Drama. But it's actually more horrifying than anything, watching Justina and her family pretty much abandon this actual child, who is screaming and crying, in the Zane's house for her fiancé to do as he pleases.

I've never watched Game of Thrones, but I'm assuming this is what the show is like.

Rosa is miserable and barely speaks after that, which makes complete sense. I cannot imagine what she went through and then continues to go through after she gets married. After Rosa is off and married, Justina takes her vows and becomes a nun and is also rather miserable because she was the one who was supposed to get married and she misses Luca and wants to be with him.

Rosa married into a very messed up family. They don't let her see her mom or sister, or let anyone visit unless Lord Zane (her husband) or his mother-in-law is there to supervise. It's blatant abuse. Rosa's husband "visits" her every night, sometimes multiple times, because all he cares about his having an heir, and he thinks because she's so young, she has plenty of time to give him a son. It's disgusting.

Lord Zane's sister Zanetta is a nun at the convent and is actual pure evil. The convent had a recent election, and Zanetta's friend didn't end up winning, so she's bitter and walks around like she's the haram police (but make it Catholic) getting into everyone's business and trying to get them into trouble.

A good middle portion of the book is kind of boring tbh. This book felt soooo long. I kept thinking I was further along than I was, only to find out I was barely 40% of the way through the book.

Anyway, fast forward to literally everyone and their mother is pregnant.

Rosa is pregnant and can finally sleep at night because her midwife has told her husband to be "gentle" with her *literally throws up*

Luca had to get married super quickly cause the pope is going to attack Venice and excommunicate it from the Church, so he marries some random girl who apparently is boring and not as great as Justina, and she eventually gets pregnant.

Justina's brother, Paolo, who Justina warned should be careful with Madelena because she is a slave and if she gets pregnant, their dad can do whatever he wants with her and throw her out onto the street, gets her pregnant of course.

And then we have this whole drama with a courtesan who Justina's brother and dad have both frequented and did not pay her the 100 ducats she is owed. As a result, this courtesan has been sending letters asking for her money, which Justina finds, and in this letter, the courtesan gives her dad an ultimatum: give me my 100 ducats or I give me your eldest daughter and I will sell her virginity off to the highest bidder even though she's kind of ugly. Just perfect.

To top all of this off...Luca who is a womanizer and cannot just stick to one woman, went with a bunch of other guys and spent the night at another convent and got arrested. Bail is also 100 ducats. So Justina is freaking out because she knows her dad will chose her brother over her because he's the heir is trying to raise the money.

Meanwhile, the family finds out about Madelena being pregnant, and Justina's dad decides to sell her to the courtesan instead who wants to make use of her after she's finished being pregnant. Yes, I know this book is really something. But the courtesan agrees to let Madelena live at the convent as Justina's maid until she has the baby. Paolo gets out of jail cause men never get punished for anything, and Luca pays off the courtesan because he and Justina have been secretly in touch through letters.

Inside the convent, nothing is as it seems. Justina's aunt is also a nun and in a relationship with another nun, which Justina walks in on lol. Justina's next door cellmate is in a relationship with a carpenter. And yes, she also gets pregnant. Apparently its very normal for nuns to not really be nuns and have sex and then get pregnant and the Abbess apparently is chill with their babies being raised as orphans at the convent. She's kind of a cool Abbess. Zanetta and her posse wander around sneering at everyone and trying to listen in on your conversations.

Justina's aunt pretty much tells Justina you gotta enjoy life and experience love and then ask for forgiveness from God. So Justina and Luca plan a whole outing together on her birthday. (Luca has been visiting the convent to give her updates on her family when her brother was in prison). Nothing actually happens because Luca is an honourable man, but to no one's surprise, this makes it much harder for either of them to stay apart.

Justina also starts writing about life in the convent and everything she sees and hears around her, including what is happening with the Pope wanting to attack Venice, the secrets the nuns hide from the rest of the world and other heretical and sacrilegious things. She sends her writing to Luca, who thinks she's incredible and super intelligent (and I guess for her time period she would be, and the author does say her character is inspired by another nun who did publish her works), and he even helps her to find a publisher to publish her manuscript. I honestly felt like this version of Justina didn't fit well with the rest of her story. Justina, the writer is insightful and daring, arguing about the role of women in Venetian society. But irl she is completely different, mostly staying silent when Zanetta is bullying her and barely able to stand up for herself. At the same time, I feel like I’m also a completely different person in my writing than I am irl so I don’t know if I can judge.

Anyway, to summarize the pregnant people in this book so far:
>Rosa, Justina’s sister
>Luca’s wife
>Justina’s next-door cellmate
>Madelena who is pregnant with Paolo’s child

Justina’s next-door cellmate decides to run off with her carpenter now that she’s pregnant and sneaks off in the middle of the night. Before anyone can find out about this, an aqua alta occurs in Venice (pretty much a flood from high tides). And it just so happens Rosa is visiting at this time and her water breaks.

Honestly, this was my favourite part of the book and that’s entirely because I’m an obgyn nurse. Justina rushes her off to the infirmary and tries to send a pregnant Madelena out to get their midwife, but the water is too high. So instead, Justina goes next door where Luca lives (yes, I know, very convenient), and it just so happens that Luca’s wife has gotten a new midwife who was just visiting. Luca calls Justina by her first name, which is Scandal and Luca’s wife notices. And then he offers to escort Justina and the midwife back.

The midwife turns out to be Jewish (a lot of Jews escape Padua when it was attacked by the Pope and came to Venice), but they welcome her into the convent anyway cause they’re desperate. And then we get to the good stuff. The baby is in the wrong position, so the midwife performs an external cephalic version (which I was quite impressed with) and turned the baby head down. The baby eventually comes out and the midwife hands her over to the nun who runs the infirmary. There is no sound of a cry and instead the focus is returned to Rosa and trying to save her life. From the description it looks like she possibly had a postpartum hemorrhage because this involved a lot of fundal massages and whatnot, but Rosa does live (though the midwife informs her she will not be able to have more kids so I cannot imagine the damage this child did to this poor 13-year old kid), except the baby dies.

I should add btw…Rosa’s mother-in-law came with her to the convent and is waiting to hear about this kid. Justina picks up the bundle, pulls back the cloth. And turns out…the baby is Black. I literally just sat there shook for a moment because it did not cross my mind that a 13 year old would willingly have sex because that is a child and I thought at most she had a huge crush on Teodor (the gondolier), but nope, apparently she wanted to feel what true love was before she was forced to marry Lord Zane and had sex with him.

So now the panicking starts because Rosa’s mother-in-law will want to see her and the baby, even if the baby is dead. So they decide to tell her that the baby’s face is deformed because they had to pull the baby out quickly to save Rosa’s life, so that’s why the face is covered, and most likely no one will pull back the cover to see the baby’s skin colour. Rosa also wants them to bring Teodor to the convent so he can see his child he didn’t know existed.

Rosa’s mother-in-law arrives, holds the bundle, informs Rosa that Lord Zane will like to see the baby too and they will bury her in their family graveyard. So everyone starts panicking again because surely they’ll see what the baby looks like at the funeral, so after Rosa’s mother-in-law leaves and Teodor comes to see the baby, they bury the baby in the convent graveyard with the excuse that Rosa is now seeking shelter at the convent from her husband (fair) and she wants the baby buried close to her since she refuses to go back to her husband.

We get a scene later on with Lord Zane furious and at the convent demanding his wife be returned to him (he doesn’t care if she needs to heal and can’t even walk). But I love this Abbess and she stands him down and tells him to go ahead and call his lawyers, except she runs this convent and he can’t do anything. Justina and Rosa’s parents come, and her dad tries to convince her to go back to her husband, but Rosa decides to stay.

We eventually get a scene where Paolo comes to tell Justina the news that he’s going to the battle front to do mostly admin work and he wants to bring Madelena with him for enjoyment purposes. Madelena is amazing and refuses. The courtesan has offered to buy her freedom, and she realizes she can do more with her freedom than she can as a slave mistress for a nobleman. She makes Paolo promise that if she has a boy he will find him an apprenticeship and if it’s a girl, she’ll get to stay at the convent with Justina. Paolo is upset for one second and then asks Justina where her next-door cellmate is because she’s really pretty. Anyway, I hate him a lot. All he cares about is pleasure and sex and he takes no consideration into how it affects the women around him. When Rosa was freaking out about her marriage, he just told her that she needs to get over it and adjust and it’ll be fine. And when she refuses to go back to Lord Zane after her delivery, he acts like he can’t understand why his 13-year old sister would feel uncomfortable around a man twice her age who is only interested in bedding her until he gets a son. He’s gross and I hate him.

Luckily for us, he dies at the front like two pages later. And this is when things get spicy!

Luca comes to deliver the news. Justina is upset for one second, and then she’s like “Screw it! I’m gonna have sex with Luca” and she tells Luca this, and Luca is like “omg yes let’s do this instead of crying over your brother/my best friend dying”. So they make plans for him to climb the wall and meet her in the courtyard at night.

Now Justina thinks about telling Rosa and her aunt about her brother’s death, but realizes if she tells them, they’ll want to spend the night together praying and crying and that’ll ruin her sex plans of course. SO…she decides, whatever, she’ll tell them tomorrow morning and pretend she spent the night too upset to leave her room like 💀 I am all for hating Paolo, but seriously??

Anyway, Luca sneaks over, they have sex like three times. Justina has a hard time staying quiet. Apparently, Luca’s wife doesn’t enjoy sex with him. I really cared about that.

And then just when he’s about to leave, they open the door and there is Zanetta.

I was waiting for a showdown between Zanetta and Justina, and this was the most disappointing thing in the entire world. She threatens to expose them. Venice has new laws that will result in Luca being exiled and he’s just gotten a great position in the Council and has a baby on the way (in case anyone forgot). And what happens to Justina is up to the Abbess, but pretty sure Zanetta would make her life hell. Zanetta also points out that she knows Justina’s aunt was in a relationship with her best nun friend, and that she has plans to become the next abbess. She also knows about Justina’s sacrilegious writing because she snoops around Justina’s room. And she knows about Justina sneaking off to meet Luca that one other time. And she’s starting to get suspicious about Rosa burying her baby in the garden…

So instead of pushing her down the stairs or something, Justina ruins the lives of everyone around her. She promises to make her aunt not run for Abbess. She promises Zanetta that she will convince Rosa to go back to Lord Zane (Zanetta’s brother). She also promises to never see Luca again and to confess and repent. And finally, she promises to burn her manuscript.

It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. And all we get after this is that Justina realizes Zanetta was in love with Luca all along and she’s bitter she never got to be with him and everyone around her was doing whatever they wanted with no consequences, so she is bitter and making everyone else’s lives miserable.

So after throwing everyone under the bus, Luca leaves, Justina burns her manuscript, she confesses and then life moves on. She tells Rosa what happened, and Rosa is like “oh I was getting bored here and was thinking of going back anyway” like ???? girl you literally hate it there and were miserable?? At least you have ten times more freedom at the convent?? Justina’s aunt is like “okay fine, I won’t become abbess because after my girlfriend died I think everyone is suspicious we were together so I probably won’t win the election”. And that’s it.

A few years pass. Rosa has a boy. How she gets pregnant and safely delivers a baby after the midwife said she couldn’t, I have no idea. But apparently now she really can’t get pregnant again, and she tells her mom that Lord Zane doesn’t visit her anymore and she’s been finally able to get some sleep 🥴 Her mom seems shocked that Rosa would be happy about this, which is such a mom thing. Madelena had a girl, and Justina’s mom is kind of warming up to Madelena because her daughter looks like Paolo a bit. Justina is writing again, but this time it’s less inflammatory and more about day-to-day life in the convent and she doesn’t plan to publish it anymore. Luca apparently took some of her manuscript before it was burned and has had it printed anonymously…something about educating your daughters and it’s causing quite a stir. Justina has forgiven her father for some reason, though technically it’s all his fault. She’s still in love with Luca, but nothing will happen with that and The End.

It was a weird conclusion. This whole book was weird. And it was waaay too long. I honestly felt like I was watching a reality tv show set in early 1500s Venice. I wish we got more about the politics of the time. The Pope fighting and attacking cities and excommunicating them was definitely more interesting.

Overall, 2 stars. I hope this review is a good enough summary for those of you who don’t want to go through the trouble of reading this book.

This books started off fast paced and engaging and I really enjoyed the first 3rd of the book. I thought the historical detail and writing tone was fantastic. I did however start to get bored and found it a bit repetitive for the 2nd half. Much like Justina is restless with her convent life and and the stagnancy of her situation, i too felt this.
I like the conversation about the lack of agency women had at this time and I think it’s part of an important conversation, and one which is linked to a broader discussion about what has and has not changed over time. 3⭐️ Read for me