The Wicked and the Just

  • Type: Ebooks
  • By: Jillian Anderson Coats
  • Age Category: Teens
  • Genre: Historical Fiction
  • Recommended by: Tom S.
  • ISBN/UPC: 9780547688374
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Tired of historical fiction with spunky-sweet princesses and happily ever afters? Try this.

It’s 1293 and bratty Cecily moves unwillingly to a frontier town in Wales where her father has accepted an appointment as an English government official charged with keeping order among the newly-conquered Welsh.  Bored and unhappy, Cecily takes out much of her frustration on Gwenhwyfar, her Welsh servant.  Though the practicalities of survival for herself and her family require Gwenhwyfar to endure her mistress’s ill treatment, the Welsh girl is no Cinderella, happily putting up with it all out of pure kindness.  She’s boiling with anger, and when the plot takes a shocking turn leaving Gwenhwyfar in control, it becomes clear that her form of justice is only barely tempered by mercy.
 
This book portrays a violent, dirty, smelly world featuring two protagonists, only one of whom is more than marginally sympathetic.  But the level of historical detail here is impressive, and the author has much to tell us about the effects of colonialism and power politics on the human soul.