Maddalena and the Dark

Starred review from April 3, 2023
Fine (The Upstairs House) beguiles with this decadent tale of desire set in 18th-century Venice. Luisa, a 15-year-old orphan, is raised at the all-girls conservatory Ospedale della Pietà, where composer Don Antonio Vivaldi is concertmaster and Luisa dreams of becoming a star violinist. Her life is upended by the arrival of Maddalena Grimani—a charming girl of noble birth, sent to the conservatory in hopes that a modest education will dispel rumors of her illegitimacy and increase her marriage prospects. The two girls embark on an intimate friendship, holding hands during mass and covertly sharing a bed, and Maddalena reveals a powerful secret she’s discovered: the sea grants wishes in exchange for offerings. Maddalena encourages Luisa to cast her own wish: to become the Pietà’s best violinist. But as Luisa’s wish is realized and her enchanting performances capture the attention of Vivaldi and later those of the men in Maddalena’s life, Maddalena makes another wish of her own—that she’ll have Luisa’s undivided affection. Maddalena’s wish sets the girls on a path of increasingly dangerous covenants with the sea that threaten to destroy everything they’ve attained. Fine delivers a masterly exploration of the shifting power dynamics of the protagonists’ relationship, particularly as Maddalena’s devotion to Luisa curdles into obsession. With the alluring Venice backdrop, this will frighten and captivate in equal measure.

April 15, 2023
Two girls in an 18th-century Venetian music school are drawn together in a story of love, ambition, and dark magic. In 1717 Venice, the noble Grimani family--reeling from a recent scandal--decides to send 15-year-old Maddalena to the prestigious all-girls music school Ospedale della Piet�, hoping to preserve her chances at marriage. As she learns her fate, while riding a gondola on a "vast lagoon," the discontented and recalcitrant Maddalena sees an otherworldly creature approach her in the water. "And the thing asks Maddalena, without speaking: What do you want? And the thing asks: What will you pay for it?" Later, at the Piet�, Maddalena finds herself drawn to violinist Luisa, and the two develop an intimate relationship. When Maddalena learns that the reserved and modest Luisa is more ambitious than she lets on, the two begin making wagers with the mysterious forces that lurk in the canals and lagoon. Moody and sumptuous, the novel has many delights in store for lovers of beautiful sentences and lush scene building. The relationship between Luisa and Maddalena is seductive, exciting, and suspenseful--especially as jealousy begins to color the quality of Maddalena's wishes. However, this suspense doesn't quite carry through the entire novel, which suffers from uneven and often frustratingly slow pacing. The grim conclusion, which feels unsatisfying and overwritten ("Now is nothing. Now is exploding, exponential stars; the water and the water and the water"), also falls disappointingly into bury-your-gays tropes. Still, with its enchanting gothic tone, the novel does manage to pull the reader into a subtly mystical world and makes for an unsettling and sometimes haunting experience. An unevenly paced, atmospheric story with a supernatural twist and queer undertones.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2023
Set in 1717, Fine's (The Upstairs House, 2021) third novel is a gothic tale of music, desire, and romantic friendship between women. Though not a foundling herself, Maddelena is sent by her wealthy family to a home that trains orphaned girls to perform music, something forbidden to married women. There, she meets a mysterious gondolier, who appears at her unspoken whims to escort her through watery Venice, and Luisa, a violinist whose bed she shares at night. This is a book of choices and questions. Will Luisa join Maddelena on the gondola? Will Luisa marry a man and give up music? Will Maddelena follow through with her plan when a secret is exposed? The stakes for the characters are impossibly high, with ruination both lingering from the past and threatening around the unseen corners of the future. Fine's writing is rich and transportive, with much language coming from musical and Italian lexicons. The narrative alternates between Luisa and Maddelena, but ultimately, the story belongs to Maddalena and the darker parts of Venice and life.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.