The Phoenix Bride

One of the reasons I am primarily an SFF writer is because I like to envision ways for the impossible to be possible. I find this easier to do in far future settings or in a world with magic. In her sophomore novel, The Phoenix Bride, Natasha Siegel has managed to perform this feat in a historical romance. It’s kind of mind blowing.

The first thing to note is that Siegel’s prose is absolutely stunning. While I felt The Phoenix Bride was solidly a historical romance, I could see an industrious bookseller categorizing it as “literary historical fiction,” due to Siegel’s writing style. They wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. I find that most of the justifications used in making these distinctions are nebulous in the extreme. From the opening chapter where Siegel’s description of joy sets the readers heart aflutter to her later exploration of grief, the text is designed to make the reader feel the viewpoint characters inner journey. I can’t make promises for anyone else, but it certainly worked for me.

That’s not what I mean by making the impossible possible though. I firmly believe genre writers have just as many incredible talents as literary ones. No, the impossible thing in this book is the central relationship. Cecilia is a young protestant widow who manages to fall for David, the Jewish doctor helping her through grief and depression after her husbands unexpected death. It was not exactly common for a Christian woman in 1600’s London to see a Jew as a full human, let alone a romantic partner, nor for society to let such a relationship find a happy ending. Siegel finds a way to make it believable. It is not your typical romance novel ending, that would be historically inaccurate, but it works.

The major stumbling block for me was that I occasionally found myself enraged with Cecilia. It’s lovely that she sees David as an equal, and they do not explore the relationship until she is no longer his patient so there’s no ethical breech, but the risks she has him taking felt extremely selfish to me. If they are caught the person who will suffer most is David. Furthermore, it will not just be his life in shambles. The Jewish community was on very shaky grounds, and David is only living in London because his family has been expelled from Spain and Portugal. The scandal of a high society christian woman being caught with her Jewish doctor could easily have resulted in catastrophe and mass murder of the Jews of London. Perhaps all love is selfish, but I could not forgive Cecilia for pushing David into taking public risks and ignoring the potential repercussions.

David, on the other hand, is delightful. His major issue is falling in love with unattainable people – don’t we all? – despite much easier prospects being readily available. He is either bisexual or pansexual, and this is given historically accurate treatment, plus his practice of medicine is progressive for the time. Through his eyes we see what it is like to be a child of a forced diaspora, what it means to trade in your familiar life for the privilege of openly practicing your faith, and the pain of not being socially permitted to love the way your heart desires. He also has my favorite line – specifically when he ponders christian marriages. Trust me, you’ll laugh out loud when you read it. His journey is thoughtful and deep, laced with a touch of humor, much like the man himself.

The Phoenix Bride spans several historical events, the biggest being the Great Fire of London which has specific impact on Cecilia and David’s relationship. They are written with excellent detail, including some interesting forays into the medicine of the time. This makes it all the more intriguing that The Phoenix Bride manages to have a happy ending for the unlikely couple. As mentioned, it’s unconventional, but if we look around at our modern-day world it seems obvious that conventional solutions have failed us anyway. Perhaps if we all got a little more creative we could make the impossible possible too.

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