I received this advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. My college library will be purchasing a copy for use in art history and potentially literature classes. I found this novel interesting, but I did not finish reading it in it's entirety. I lost interest at about the 25% mark. However, of the portion I read, I feel that it was well designed and had a very interesting premise. My challenge was not feeling engaged enough with the main protagonist and I struggled to stay interested in her storyline. As we began to follow the historical character, I was more intrigued by her story -- but overall the book did not hold my interest long enough to successfully complete it. This would likely be a good novel for people who are interested in art and historical feminist retellings.

Verity Frazier is at a crossroads, should she forego her own moral integrity to gain tenure in a field she's no longer inspired by, or should she be completely rash and pursue passion and an interesting hunch abroad? I liked this glimpse into the rarefied subject of medieval books, and the romantic academics devoted to it. Even though the setting is 2018, I liked how of-another-era Verity and Anastasia sounded. I enjoyed reading about solid things I could learn about like vellum, blued teeth, and history, more than the little supernatural bits and bobs that veered into magical realism.

Until the ending I felt that Verity was a fully-formed character whose actions and decisions made sense, compared to temperamental Anastasia's; I'll just say the ending came as a surprise to me. In a good way. Kathleen B Jones does a masterful job with all the beautiful settings: northern California, New York, London and Paris. This is a great debut novel, I loved learning she had studied and taught about Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies herself.

Christine de Pizan is one of the few medieval women we know from their own words who wasn’t either a member of a religious order or a member of a royal family. Her works reflect a philosophical mind that wanted to improve the world around her. Illuminated copies of her books are absolutely beautiful; they are treasures from an otherwise appalling century. The beauty of de Pizan’s poetry and the books made to show off that poetry are a central part of Kathleen B. Jones’s novel, Cities of Women. Unfortunately, the inspiration of Christine de Pizan and the Book of the Queen are not enough to elevate an otherwise dull story of two women who have to deal with mundanities in order to have beauty in their lives.

Cities of Women is told in turns by two women, separated by nearly a millennium. Beatrice is a contemporary of Christine de Pizan, although she only meets the celebrated author later in life. Verity is a historian on the verge of stalling out of the tenure track sometime around our present. Beatrice and Verity are very different characters, only really sharing a desire to do justice to the stories of others. Beatrice is an artist in her own right; she uses her talents to illuminate manuscripts before they’re bound and finished. Verity wants to tell the stories of the women she studies (first women of the Paris Commune, then the woman? who might have illuminated the Book of the Queen) but is told to strip her writing of anything that’s not academic and utterly grounded in documented history.

Beatrice’s chapters race through her life. We meet Beatrice as a young girl, just before the Black Death kills her father and younger sisters. Later chapters jump ahead by years as Beatrice becomes the primary earner in her small household before she figures out a way to find enough money to bring herself and her mother to Paris where, she hopes, she can set up shop illuminating manuscripts. Verity’s chapters don’t jump through time the same way. After getting a discouraging message from her department at a California college, Verity goes into a bit of a tailspin before taking a friend’s invitation to go to New York and take some time to think about her next steps. A chance visit to the Morgan Library sends Verity further off her trajectory, to London where she can study illuminated manuscripts in person. Her new quest is to prove that the Book of the Queen was illuminated by a woman—not impossible but there is literally no evidence to prove who the artist was one way or the other.

I struggled with this book, mostly because I was annoyed by Verity and the way that Beatrice’s chapters kept jumping ahead. I found Beatrice to be much more interesting than Verity, in part because Beatrice is much more pragmatic and grounded than Verity. Beatrice not only doesn’t waver in her goals, she also knows how to make and execute a plan. She also doesn’t suffer fools or fall for flatterers. Verity, on the other hand, comes across as much younger than she must be. (She must be in her late 20s or early 30s to have a Ph.D. and be on the first rung of the tenure track.) She lets herself be led by someone who she should definitely have some qualms about while, at the same time, flailing whenever she attempts to explain her newfound fascination with Christine de Pizan and the Book of the Queen. The juxtaposition of the two characters was jarring.

Readers, I’d recommend leaving this one on the shelf.

This is a historian’s historical novel, in every sense of the word. Not surprisingly, is is written by a former academic; Kathleen Jones began her writing career as a political scientist and professor, before turning to literary fiction. Cities of Women is a seamless blend of these two domains of their experience, reflecting a deep respect for the scholarly pursuit of history while offering readers a deeply textured and emotional perspective of the past.

The novel toggles between the modern present and the medieval past, beginning with a tenure track historian’s search for her place in the academia. Verity Frazier then encounters, by chance, that rare glimpse of an undiscovered history. This is the sort of thing historians dream of when they enter archives; Jones portrayal Verity’s hope and desire is palpable — or perhaps that is just my historian’s heart set aflutter. Buried, like so many women of his age, is the presence of a female illuminator, Anastasia.

The unfolding of Verity’s archival adventure draws the reader into a world that is both exotic and familiar. Verity and Anastasia (like us all) live in a patriarchal world, one which fails to take women seriously, which gaslights us, and forces us to make undesirable choices. This is a feminist novel, bringing to the fore these age-old prejudices and the battles women must fight to be heard, seen, remembered.

Then novel also contains more than one beautiful and flawed sapphic romance, highlighting the containment and self-sustaining world of womanhood. This is the beauty of Cities of Women; it is an illumination of women, an honest portrait of women’s struggles and successes, a tale of oppression and empowerment as the two sides of our collective experience. Readers should know this realist capturing of the female experience may trigger; who among us cannot point to some evidence of trauma in our lives?

Indeed, Jones’ characters are as made of flesh as ourselves, so well does her characterization reflect the depth of her historical research and her skill as an author. We can feel Verity’s pain, the elasticity of Anastasia’s tenacity, Christine’s boldness and pride. We can also recognize the women around them, the friends who succumbed to the status quo, the colleagues who share in the frustration of being a woman in a man’s world, the lovers who boost us and tear us down.

The novel revolves around these women and their lives, and as such, being character-driven, moves at a languid pace, stretching the length of lives for some characters and capturing mere months of others. Time, in fact, is fluid in this novel, a kind of ephemeral backdrop; the lives Jones tells us about cut across time, flatten it. Women have then, as now, experienced much the same things.

Dialogue between the characters is seamless, perhaps too much so sometimes; I was left wondering if people really talk like this? But then, the world is wide and there are many in it, so perhaps they do. Or perhaps Jones is referencing the physic unity between women, so One-Of-Mind are we that our words may zipper so flawlessly together. Overall, however, Jones’ prose is splendid, mature, and expressive; it is smooth, flowing, and sensuous in many parts. Readers will find themselves cradled in gorgeous text throughout.

DNF. Sorry, but this is a no for me. I love stories about unknown women in history but I find it so unengaging that I’m just skimming really early on. 3 stars for premise - 1 star for boredom = 2 stars.

This novel tells the story of Verity, a young academic in modern day, and Beatrice, a medieval illuminator of manuscripts whose trail Verity is following. While the historical elements of the novel were quite detailed, the characters were not well fleshed out and made nonsensical choices. The prose was strange, particularly in the historical part, with many weird metaphors that just didn’t work.

The historical side of this split-timeline novel is exceptionally well researched; it features intriguing characters and strong world-building. Unfortunately, the contemporary story is unconvincing. The protagonist's dialogue is often stilted, her love interest is unappealing, and it is very difficult to follow what is at stake for her in terms of her career. To be blunt, it often seems as though the contemporary story was shoehorned in for purposes of exposition about medieval history. In an unfortunate touch of irony, while the protagonist is chided for an overly novelistic tone in her scholarly writing, there are long passages in this novel that read like straightforward scholarship.

After a personal tragedy, Beatrice has to flee her home along with her mother which means she also has to give up her dream of becoming a book illuminator. In the 21st century, historian Verity is captured by a folio containing an illustration in a book by the medieval French writer Catherine De Pizan.

Cities of women is a dual timeline historical novel. We meet Beatrice in medieval France who has a dream of becoming an illuminator and Verity, an historian tangled up with herself and her research projects.

As is often the case with dual timeline novels, I liked the historical perspective better. But this time mostly because Verity's story was a mess - with a problematic romance, a research project that was very far-fetched in my opinion, and heavy attention to certain detail that gives too much space to the modern story. Catherine and Beatrice's story could also have been better developed I think. But I certainly enjoyed reading their story much more.

This is clearly Jones' debut novel: it lacks focus and coherence. A pity because I had hoped for more as I find the subject of book illumination by medieval women quite interesting.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

this historical tale alternates between two perspectives: verity, a modern academic, and beatrice, a medieval french artist, with occasional chapters from the pov of christine de pizan's, a real-life 14th century french-italian proto-feminist writer.
cities of women explores understanding women's history and pursuing one's passions. in verity's quest to prove that the illustrations in christine's manuscripts were by a woman rather than a man, she uncovers the life and experience of a woman in medieval history.
the writing was descriptive and well paced, and beatrice's narrative, though slow, fit the historical context. the perspective shifts were a bit confusing though, and i surprisingly related more to verity's. but overall the book was engaging (for the most part) and informative, a testament to the author's commitment to the research done for this novel.
rating: 3.25⭐

3.5⭐ Cities of Women was a study of juxtaposition for me. I loved the premise of this novel. I really enjoyed the storyline and writing set in medieval times, but the modern thread just left me wanting more. Interesting concept for a book!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced digital reader's copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review!

I liked this book a lot! I loved the writing style and the themes. The plot was incredibly interesting. At times, it felt a bit too much like telling-not-showing, if you get what I mean.

"If we do not preserve these masterpieces," Gilles told me, "we would lose the wisdom of centuries. Not only sacred texts, but also poetry and philosophy, medical works, and accounts of great voyages; all these texts our work safeguards for generations to come. Remember, Béatrice, stories keep us alive. Without stories to console us, the world would be impossibly bleak."

I recommend to lovers of historical and women’s fiction, because this is truly a good story.

Not gonna lie, I definitely lost the plot of this around halfway through. It was very well researched though and I can relate to Verity as a fellow historian. The dialogue and characters felt dry to me, unfortunately and I wasn't as curious about the mystery of Christine de Pizan as I thought I would be.

This was a book that should have really hit all my marks but for some reason it just didn't resonate for me. I read about 60% of it and it was taking me SO LONG to get through because I kept zoning out and having to reread the same bits over again to try and follow the story. I decided to try a few other books and come back to this one, but when I eventually did, I couldn't remember what had happened in the story. I'm giving it 4 stars because it was well written and will be fascinating to the right reader but I just didn't personally connect with the material.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for access to a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I had trouble getting into this book. I found the older timeline focusing on Anastasia more appealing, as it seemed to carry the essence of the story more effectively. Like others, I felt that the newer timeline centered around Verity didn't add significant value to the narrative. Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC!

Cities of Women is one of the more befuddling books I’ve had to review in some time. The novel has a split structure, with one part set in contemporary time and focusing on Verity, a young academic struggling with her big project and up for tenure. Viewing an exhibit of 13th century illuminated manuscripts associated with a female author of the time, she impulsively decides to drop her ongoing project (in her specialty area) and wholly switch gears into art history by trying to track down the unknown artist, whom everyone assumes was a male, The second part of the narrative is set in the older time period and follows the artist and the author from early ages and depicting how they became collaborators.

The befuddling issue is that had you shown me segments of these plot lines out of context, k would have been positive they were by two authors at wholly different stages of their careers and honestly with quite a gap in talent as well. To start with the positive, the historical sections, while having some issues, were mostly well written with a good sense of the time period, good characterization, a smooth flow, and good pace. On the other hand, the contemporary sections were simply put hard to get through thanks to issues of plausibility, dialog, and characterization. I don’t like to belabor a non positive review, so I’m not going to list every issue. Suffice to say, very little if any of it rang true to either the situational contexts/logistics or how people act. My margin notes often consist of “no she didn’t” when the main character says what she did or “implausible” or simply “c’mon”. I can’t recommend a book half of which was this level of quality. However, if you pick it up and find yourself having the same reaction to the contemporary parts, I’d say don’t drop the book but just skip the Verity segments and read the historical parts, which should give you a satisfying reading experience

Cities of Women by Kathleen B. Jones was a nice read for me!
The dual storytelling was engaging and interesting.
In this we follow Verity a modern day historian and Beatrice from the 1300's.
The amount of research that has gone into this book just on face value is clear! Women helping women across history is an incredible concept for a novel and the discussion of the dismissed contribution of women is something that needs to be spoken about much more often.
The writing style was beautiful and the prose has you drawn in instantly.

The only issue I found with this book was the depth of the characters. Verity felt a little flat and I would have loved to know more about Beatrice and Christine.

Overall I would absolutely recommend giving this one a read! Especially if you are into historical fiction.

(Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review!)

Being a medieval historian who actually wrote a thesis using Christine de Pizan as a source, I was SO excited for this book. But it just isn't my style. I don't connect with the writing. It is too flowery and descriptive. It drags down the entire pacing and flow of the story, which becomes secondary to the imagery. I like plot-driven books, and this was the total opposite of that. Not a bad book, just definitely not for me.

Switching POVs and timelines between Verity in 2018 and Beatrice in the 1300s, which I enjoyed in the first half but quickly became bored and just wanted to finish the novel.

A little overly descriptive for my taste-the author clearly did her research and wanted to include everything she found. But it made the story drag and threw off the pacing, almost pulling me out; accuracy got in the way of the flow. I honestly started skimming especially in Verity’s chapters, this book could’ve been cut by 1/3 and nothing of substance would change.

I preferred Beatrice’s chapters and felt like we skimmed so much of her life, giving brief sentences about what’s happening spanning 5-10 years at a time. I wanted to hear more from her! I wish the minute details describing Verity’s routines and the buildings had been cut and made more space for Beatrice’s life. More balance should’ve been given to both timelines as we get a day by day look at Verity, but then we get a few years or a decade at a time for Beatrice.

Actually I wish Verity was cut period, this would have been a MUCH stronger book if it focused on the past from Beatrice and Christine instead. We get two chapters from Christine’s POV before she meets Beatrice. Once this happens, we don’t hear from her again so I questioned what the point of that was.

The characters lacked depth maybe because the author tried to include a lot from her research without giving us any insight into the people and their motivations. For this reason I didn’t connect with a single character. The romance in the present timeline happened so quickly that it was unbelievable and felt forced. It was also problematic at times and distracted from the main plot rather than building onto it.

The ending felt rushed and surface level, almost unfinished. I read the whole book and felt I had learned next to nothing. It was as if nothing stuck because the main info was so passed over, in exchange for excessive details about the setting. And at times was more of an info dump than a cohesive novel.

Overall the novel held a lot of promise but fell flat in its execution. If it weren’t for the romance I would’ve kept this around 3 stars, but it drove me so crazy I’m dropping half a star. This is a book I should’ve loved based on the synopsis and similar concept novels I’ve read before, but sadly it’s my worst book of July 😭 Finding out that the author is in academia and this is her first novel, it makes sense why it’s so info heavy and lacks character/world building.

Cities of Women, by Kathleen B. Jones
Rating: 5/5
Published: 5th September 2023
'Women's stories of use and achievement never figured much in the annals of history. Of the inequity accompanying the birth of a daughter, of the treachery hidden between false lovers' words, of the tribulations of women abandoned for the thrill of battle, of the depredations besetting downtrodden poor, of the loneliness and penury of widows, of the discourse of scorn heaped on women, and of their valiant accomplishments.'
This book is absolutely stunning. It shifts between multiple time periods and points of view, but does so without the usual clunkiness that you can encounter with such narratives. The book tells the story of three incredible women; Verity Frazier, an academic; Beatrice, a medieval French artist; and Christine de Pizan, a late 14th-early 15th century writer for the court of Charles VI. Jones’ research is quite stunning. The attention to detail is spectacular, and I loved reading how society treated women in the past, despite them being experts and incredibly capable in their respective fields. Jones’ academic past shines through in the text. I loved following Verity’s hunt for answers and information, and I felt thoroughly invested in her academic pursuit. It reminded me of being a historian myself.
There are feminist tropes in this novel, but it adds to the charm. Jones uses her characters to explore how women needed, and still need, to be creative in order to be taken seriously and respected in their work. The Sapphic romance was a lovely touch too.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

Overall, an okay read. I preferred the older timeline (Anastasia) and felt the newer timeline (Verity) was unnecessary to tell this story.

2.75☆