This was a beautiful, riveting read. I have a soft spot for any historical fiction set in the Middle Ages and this was no exception.

Eleanore, named for the infamous Eleanor of Aquitaine, is a young woman in Avignon in 1347. The Pope has made Avignon his residence and the community is growing. Eleanore, the daughter of a healer and Papal scribe, is one of a twin. Her sister, Margot, is set to be married and Eleanore finds she is without purpose, afloat after the death of her mother. Enter Guigo, the physician of Pope Clement. Through hard work and knowledge, Eleanore finds herself apprenticed to Guigo, learning from him and coming into contact with Pope Clement and Queen Joanna of Naples. Her life seems to be taking off...and then the Black Plague arrives. Eleanore and Guigo try to find potential treatments while watching their community suffer.

I enjoyed the descriptions of Avignon, the history included and the journey of Eleanore. I anxiously await new works from DeLozier!

Eleanore of Avignon by Elizabeth DeLozier is a fantastic historical fiction debut novel about a young midwife who becomes assistant to the pope's physician. This gives Eleanore the opportunity to learn the physician's trade, attend the queen's delivery and research treatments for the plague that infested Europe in the mid 1300's.

Eleanore, who lives with her father and twin sister, learned midwifery from her mother, who has recently and tragically passed away. She longs to learn more medicine so as to prevent deaths like her mother's. Eleanore is a strong heroine who made me want to cheer for her.

The time period of 1347 in Provence was one that I have not read much about, and I was fascinated to read about their daily life, medical practices and the coming of the plague. There is drama, history, family relationships and even a bit of romance. I found this to be a riveting story with outstanding characters and a lot of medical information.

The author's note explains the research she did and which characters are based on real historical figures. I look forward for more books by this author.

I will recommend this to readers who like historical fiction from the middle ages.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I think the timing with this one was off I know I could have loved it. But I made the mistake of reading it during October. All I wanted to read this month were fast paced thrillers and this isn’t it. This is a historical fiction and at times I felt it was a bit slow. I think I’ll have to reread this one and give it more of a fair shot in the future.

Pick this one up ASAP if you enjoyed Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, The Red Tent or The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern! For me, it hits that sweet spot of historical fiction that is well-researched but not bogged down with fact-telling and is still plenty imaginative. The midwifery and herbalist aspects of the story were what compelled me to pick it up and were definitely my favorite part.
This is fantastic for a debut, though the pacing is a bit off (the middle dragged and then all the action was packed into the end). All in all, I really enjoyed it. Such a beautiful cover, too!

Thanks so much to the author, Dutton and Net Galley for the eARC!

Eleanore of Avignon is a well written, historical novel. The author avoids all of the possible traps of some historical fiction, that is, displaying all of the research done, to the detriment of story. Instead, what we have here is interesting characters, surprising plot, and a time frame which includes the French papacy, the plague, repression of Jews and does so in an exciting, engrossing way.

This best book I’ve read in a long time.
I am not a historical (fiction) reader and wasn’t sure why I choose this read; especially when I saw the years 1347. 🤦🏻‍♀️
I was about 20 pages in and was engrossed with DeLoziers style. Her words flow with rhythm, detail, and symbolism. She focuses on character development and her research of the time period was written in a relatable manner.
I’m not going to repeat the book description just know I was blown away with the entire story.
Eleanor is portrayed as a strong-willed and intelligent woman, known for her herbal skills and ability to channel her skills in assisting the the Popes physician. We learn her struggles and turmoil and watch her grow and make hard choices.
I enjoyed every character as they are all unforgettable and they all held a role to keep me engaged.
I did not see the twist coming and that adds the 6th star on this rating.
Thank you NetGalley and thank you Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC read in exchange for my review.

Good story about a strong woman in a somewhat unusual role in the 14th century. Eleanore was determined to pursue her dream to be a physician and worked hard to turn a chance meeting with a famous male physician into opportunity. Characters were well drawn. While tragic things happened to and around Eleanore I did feel as though attaining her goal was a little too easy. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable and enlightening story.

I made it about 45% of the way through this book before I had to stop. Though I enjoyed the historical accuracy the book was going nowhere fast. Almost an entire chapter is spent between Guigo and Eleanore trying to find cures and going to people dying of the plague. Could have been wrapped up in a few sentences. The beginning alludes to a variety of different story lines but immediately stops once the plague hits their area. I tried three times to pick this book back up and push forward but became instantly bored and started looking for my next read. Maybe more happens at the end but if the author can’t captivate the audience by almost half way then they might need to go back to the drawing board. The one positive I can say about Eleanore of Avignon is, that I began researching more about the plague during this time and learned a lot in the process. But I found the research more interesting that this book.

A sweet and triumphant story of a young woman, hungry for knowledge in the midst of the Black Death. I really enjoyed the parts with Joanna of Naples, such a controversial and important figure in that period!

Historical fiction lovers will not be able to put this one down. The story will appeal to all patrons as well as a good book club selection.

Thank you NetGalley,Dutton Book Pub.,and author Elizabeth DeLozier for the arc ebook,Eleanore of Avignon.It was quite an interesting and informative historical novel all packed into 320 pages.It was so well written that I had to keep looking for more information on the true characters mentioned in the book. I do enjoy non-fiction and historical novels due to the fact that it makes me do further research on the subject instead of reading,enjoying and then going on to the next book forgetting the previous one shortly thereafter. Eleanore,a young woman in France is trained by her mother to be a healer using herbs,etc and mid-wife from an early age. She is taken under the apprenticeship of the famed Dr.Guy du Chauliac,who to this day,is named the Father of Surgery, in the 14th century in all modern medical texts.In 1347 when this story takes place in Avignon,France,the Black Plague has arrived that ultimately killed 40+ percent of all European humans. The descriptions of trying to survive in Medieval times with their limited knowledge of medicine is sad. The religious fanatics are so totally cruel,getting the illiterate peasants riled up to condemn people as witches to be burned at the stake.I recommend this book highly for its easy to understand historical content.
Book is to be published November 05,2024.

A well researched debut that explores one woman's fight to be the physician she was meant to be amidst superstition, religious radicalism and men in power of the 1300's France. Eleanore (Elea) was an apprentice to her midwife mother but saw how the same villagers who called her friend turned their back when others branded her a witch making Elea careful of hiding her gift. Now the dreaded Black Plague has reached Avignon just as Elea's knowledge of herbalism is called upon to heal Pope Clement. Her abilities surprise the Pope's physician and he agrees to take Elea on as an apprentice. As they get closer to understanding how to treat the plague Elea is called to become a midwife to an exiled Italian Queen. They work round the clock to try to find the answers that will stop the trail of death decimating Europe. The plague is not the only thing that Elea must fear as there is a fanatic priest who has her in his sights. Based on a true woman this is a fascinating look at early medicine and the many ways women worked to heal even as they were persecuted as witches. Fans of Arianna Franklin, Geraldine Brooks A YEAR OF WONDERS and Chris Bohjalian's HOUR OF THE WITCH will have a hard time putting this down. Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

This book was perfection in my opinion. I felt the characters were well written and well developed. I could picture the scenery and the time period as I read. The Black Plague was central in this book and the amount of research that this author did was incredible and well done. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

What a great read! I felt all the emotions, happy, sad, horrified and pleasure. Very poignant in today's world, the parallels were uncanny. I hope this author continues to write more books.😁

Give me a book on The Black Death & I'm sold. All jokes aside, I really loved this book. The stories were all woven together so well & the character development was real & well written. This book reminded me of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, which is one of the highest compliments IMO! The authors note at the end saying she was working on this book during COVID was a really interesting piece of information. I'm really sad I finished this book!

As a child, I'd clasp the hand of another on the playground, skip in a circle, and sing

Ring-a-ring-a-roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.

This rhyme is famously said to be about the Black Death (although folklorists doubt that it existed prior to the 18th century.) In human history, few events have been more transformative than the Plague of the 14th century. It is believed to have killed almost half of Europe's population and remade Western society. 

The Plague first arrived in Europe in 1347, the year in which DeLozier's extraordinary first novel Eleanore of Avignon is set. The novel begins in November of that year, on the outskirts of Avignon, where Eleanore, our fictional titular lead, is searching for medicinal herbs: comfrey for Anes’s swollen knees, fennel for the baker’s fussy baby, pennyroyal to keep the fleas at bay. Eleanore is an herbalist, a gifted one. Her mother, now dead from childbirth, was the city's midwife and, some say, witch. Eleanore has inherited both her mother's mantle and, Eleanore's most prized possession, her book of herbal healing: Dog-eared and water-stained, it contains all her remedies: medicines to start contractions when a baby will not come, for toothaches and gripe, to soothe winter coughs and ease swelling in painful joints.

As Eleanore walks back to the home she shares with her sister, Margot, her father, and their maid, Anes, she hears the usual sounds of stone masons shouting and of hammer blows. This is the time of the Avignon Papacy, the seven decades in which seven popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. The current pope, Clement VI, a man known for his love of luxury, is building a new palace fit for a king. And though his reign over the church is relatively unchallenged, the rule of the land is contested. Eleanore and her sister Margot support Queen Joanna, Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence, who soon will travel to Avignon to stand trial for the murder of her first husband, Andreas. 

A few days later, as Eleanore is again out hunting for herbs--she finds a rare bounty of hawthorn berries (The fruit is cleansing and acidic; it decreases swelling and produces copious urine in someone with too much water in their body.)--she encounters a giant of a man. He asks her for the berries--he is, he says, a physician and he needs them for a patient. He is at first startled at Eleanore's knowledge of the plant's powers. After speaking with her, however, he is impressed and asks if she'll accompany him to his laboratory and show him how to make her mother's hawthorn tonic which he hopes will help his patient. 

This doctor is no ordinary practitioner--he is none other than Guy de Chauliac, the pope's personal physician and perhaps the most gifted surgeon in Europe. Though Eleanore is terrified, she goes with him and makes a tonic for the ill pope. Her tincture is effective and soon she is working with Guigo, as he is called, in his laboratory, learning the craft of medicine. Eleanore has never been happier--the two are a great partnership and she revels in being taken seriously as a healer and in all that she is learning. 

Then, Clement VI summons the two to his quarters and tells them that the pestilence Eleanore has heard rumors about has arrived in Marseilles. The Pope tasks Guigo and Eleanore with finding a cure--they know it is simply a matter of time before the Black Death comes to Avignon. 

By February, 

Ash from the bonfires hangs thick in the air, casting the buildings in queer yellow light and catching in our hair like snow. Avignon’s bells no longer ring. The only sounds in the city are the rattle of the corpse carts and the calls of the crass country peasants who push them to the overflowing cemeteries: “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”


Twenty thousand Avignonese have perished.

Everywhere, there are whispers of blame. In Avignon, as in much of Europe, many blame the Jews for the Black Death. Others, wrapped in the robes of the church, blame the sins of the people and speak of witches and necromancers. It is a terrifying time. Each day, Eleanore sees those she knows and cares for die and, despite the Pope's assertion that the work the Guigo and Eleanore are doing--Clement VI lifted the Church's ban on autopsies so that de Chauliac could study the dead to better understand the disease--is blessed, there are priests in the town who wish her burned at the stake. 

Furthermore, Joanna, pregnant and hounded, has indeed come to Avignon and demands that Eleanore serve as her midwife. If the Queen's child is not born hale and well, Eleanore will be blamed and not even the favor of Europe's most famed physician can save her.

Eleanore of Avignon is superb historical fiction. I can scarcely credit that this is a first novel. Its context reflects our own times but never feels like a veiled parable. I was astounded at the barbarity and brilliance of the medical practices DeLozier presents in great detail and at the wisdom and stupidity of those who tried to stem the endless horrors of the Black Death. But the wonders of this book aren't limited to its outstanding presentation of history--this is also a marvelous tale. 

Eleanore's story--the book is told in first person--is absorbing. Though she is literally trying to save the world, she is also trying to make sense of it. She deeply loves her twin, but Margot is also a frustration--for her sister, Eleanore's ambitions are dangerous and threaten Margot's own. As she and Guido work with others in Avignon to try to heal and to care for the some many sick and dying, Eleanore is drawn to David, a young Jewish medical apprentice though such relationships are forbidden. As more die, every choice Eleanore makes could mean the difference between life and death, not just for her, but for those she loves and those she tends to. I was riveted by her.

As a child, I was fascinated by the big questions: Can one person make a difference? Does love win? How does one defeat evil? In Eleanore of Avignon, these answers to these are plausible because they are ensconced in a clearly delineated time and place. They are potent because Eleanore, fiercely devoted and willing to risk everything, is a narrator of the highest order. I can't recommend her story highly enough.

Eleanore lives in 14th century Avignon with her parents and her twin sister Margot. Her mother was an herbalist and midwife, and some people who were fearful of a strong woman called her a witch. Eleanore assisted before her mother's death, and has recently requested to apprentice herself to the local physician, who is more enlightened than many around him. An evil priest who refused to give Eleanore's mother the last rites is now plotting to harm Eleanore, and things get even worse with the arrival of the plague. The characters are vividly drawn as is the setting of medieval France, and the author's extensive research is impressive. Without a doubt one of the best historical fiction novels I've read. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this advance copy.

Set in France during the Black Plague, Eleanore lived with her sister and her father in Avignon. Her mother was a healer, and Eleanore was following in her mother's footsteps. Unfortunately when one of her mother's patients died, a curse was placed on her and her mother to the extent that there were fewer people willing to ask for Eleanore's help. Eleanore had the good luck to become apprenticed to the town surgeon and she learned from him, and he learned from her the value of using herbs. This was a reminder of how fortunate that women today are free to become independent of the men in their life. This twenty-first century reader was appalled by the accepted treatment for the plague, while understanding that people knew very little about sanitation and health. It was interesting that the surgeon was based on a true person who actually researched and found a treatment that sometimes actually worked. It was also a reminder that we must always be on guard against antisemitism. I would recommend this one. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc and no pressure for a positive review.

What an awesome read! I was initially denied on another book request site and I was majorly bummed, I absolutely had to read this wonderful story about Eleanor, a young woman following in the footsteps of her dead mother who was a midwife and gifted herbalist who tended the townsfolk of Avignon. Set in Provence 1347, Eleanor is called upon to tend the sick to create tinctures and salves to comfort and heal but Eleanor wishes to be more than the town midwife but her profession comes with a price, she is lives in fear of being branded a witch as her mother once was by the narrowminded heretics of her town. By a chance encounter with Pope Clement's personal physician, Guigo de Chuliac, Elea ends up his assistant and begins to learn the wonders of medicine in a time when women were scarcely allowed to be more than just wives and mothers. As Elea and Guigo forge a friendship of respect and trust the Black Death descends upon them and they are are racing against time to try and help find a way to counter this merciless plague that is killing everyone across Europe.
Based on real life people and events this was a tremendous read about a young woman who is unafraid of pursuing her dreams while facing the dangers of death and persecution. This was a fantastic read, Recommended.

Thank you to author Elizabeth DeLozier and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

I love historical fiction. This one was so well written that I thought Eleanor was a real historical person. She showed the problems that noble women in the renaissance had to deal with. I recommend it for fans of history especially women's history.