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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Viper Wine a Novel by Hermione Eyre Viper Wine : Book Summary and Reviews of Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Viper Wine A Novel by Hermione Eyre Viper Wine : Book summary and reviews of Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre. Venetia Stanley was the great beauty of her day, so dazzling she inspired Ben Jonson to poetry and Van Dyck to painting. But now she is married, the adoration to which she has become accustomed has curdled to scrutiny, and she fears her powers are waning. Her devoted husband, Sir Kenelm Digby - explorer, diplomat, philosopher, alchemist - refuses to prepare a beauty tonic for her, insisting on her continued perfection. Venetia, growing desperate, secretly engages an apothecary to sell her "viper wine" - a strange potion said to bolster the blood and invigorate the skin. The results are instant, glorious, and addictive, and soon the ladies of the court of Charles I are looking unnaturally youthful. But there is a terrible price to be paid, as science clashes with magic, puritans rebel against the decadent monarchy, and England slides into civil war. Based on real events and written with anachronistic verve, Viper Wine is an intoxicating brew of love, longing and vanity, where the 17th and 21st centuries mix and mingle in the most enchanting and mind-bending ways. Reviews "Beyond the Book" articles Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions and much more! Just $12 for 3 months or $39 for a year. Reviews. Media Reviews. "Starred Review. Eyre's novel, darting as it does through centuries, is an engrossing take on a timeless subject." - Publishers Weekly. "A promising idea swamped by the excesses of postmodernism: the random plundering of history and an irritating air of knowingness." - Kirkus. "A fact-filled fiction that entertains and enlightens." - Library Journal. "As an allegory of our ageing-obsessed generation, [ Viper Wine ] is hard to argue with." - Harper's Bazaar. "Eyre is a clever historian and a cunning writer of dialogue. She also understands what makes a fun, sexy read…Well-researched and completely mad…with moments of descriptive brilliance and breathtaking cleverness." - The Times (UK) "Audacious…Using an alchemy all of her own, Eyre's postmodern take on the 17th century renders it dazzlingly fresh and contemporary." - Guardian (UK) "Eyre's poise and control make her easily the equal of most historical novelists, but it's her vision of worlds bleeding into worlds and her probing and pastiching of 17th-century style that are truly exciting. Viper Wine is an enormously impressive debut." - The Telegraph (UK) "Hermione Eyre pulls off a notable trick in Viper Wine , by not just reconstructing her chosen period but rendering it permeable to intrusions from other ages…Playful…A meticulously luscious fantasia on a theme of English high life in the 1630s. Gorgeous." - Times Literary Supplement (UK) "Exuberantly inventive and intelligent…Sumptuous, strange and startlingly original." - Mail on Sunday (UK) "Playful, witty and expansive… an exceptionally clever and exhilarating excursion through Caroline high society, filled with echoes and anticipations of our own times." - Sunday Times (UK) "It sounds mad, and it is, but Eyre has worked her own magic to ensure it is so in an entrancing and perfectly plausible way… Eyre's attention to tone and detail is flawless. Viper Wine is a dazzling postmodern baroque carnivalesque." - The National (UAE) "[A] cornucopia of a novel…Would I recommend it? Certainly." - Daily Mail (UK) "[A] psychedelic trip of a novel… Untiringly carnivalesque…Bold and wildly original, Viper Wine is an exuberantly witty play on the vanity and ghoulishness of the beauty industry, and a celebration of the unfading beauty of language." - London Evening Standard (UK) "Eyre's manipulation of history is as funny as it is surreal." - Financial Times (UK) "As art history it's deeply unorthodox - but as a postmodern portrait of a trend-setting painter in the midst of a comeback, it seems both thrillingly and entertainingly right." - The Independent (UK) "A profoundly moving parable about the process of ageing, the quest for knowledge and the nature of love… Eyre's voracious enthusiasm for eclectic, highly-researched detail is persistently entertaining, breathing new life into the genre of the historical novel. A real tonic." - Country Life (UK) This information about Viper Wine shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added. Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published. Viper Wine review – a 'dazzlingly fresh and contemporary' historical fantasy. Hermione Eyre's audacious debut novel Viper Wine takes the real events of England in 1632 – a country heading for civil war, the minds of its great men torn between magic and science, and its famous women, well they're no different from those plastered over the covers of today's magazines, obsessed with the latest beauty regime – transmuting them into a heady historical fiction fantasy mash-up. Despite her husband's protestations to the contrary, the ravages of time (and lead) are clearly visible on Venetia Stanley's face. A beauty once "more spoken of than seen, like a great sight of nature, a cave or a crystal", the poet Ben Jonson's muse and Van Dyck's famed subject, she signs a Faustian pact with the apothecary Lancelot Choice for his notorious viper wine, the dangerous potion behind the plump cheeks, dilated pupils and general air of wantonness observed in the ladies of Charles I's court. Her husband, Sir Kenelm Digby, is many things – alchemist, explorer, philosopher, courtier, son of a gunpowder plotter – but foremost a loyal and loving husband who still sees the stunning woman he married when he gazes upon his wife, something that comes as no surprise considering his mind is "double-hinged" and can "go forwards as well as back". In as much as he haunts the future – "He would, in time, become a so-called crypto-Catholic; a 'renaissance man'; an emblem of mourning; a dilettante avant la letter (and before 'avant la lettre'); a touchstone for Nathaniel Hawthorne, named in The Scarlet Letter ; a cameo in a novel by Umberto Eco; and, possibly, the hero of a subscription-channel costume drama" – the future haunts him: he quotes David Bowie and Neil Armstrong, reads JavaScript and dreams of Naomi Campbell. Using an alchemy all of her own, Eyre's postmodern take on the 17th century renders it dazzlingly fresh and contemporary. Books and wine. Martina Adovica. 20th century inspired perfectionist and writer, who has ventured into the world of book reviews. “Viper Wine” by Hermione Eyre. Even after reading this novel, I don’t know how I should rate it. In certain aspects this was a hilarious representation of modern society within the context of the 17th century, but at the same time the book seemed unfinished or not entirely brought together. It tells the story of Venetia Stanley, a former beauty, who seeks to regain what she has lost through the means of various potions, brews, creams and experimental procedures. The reader follows her life and her attempts to return to her previous position of being admired in court. Her husband Sir Kenelm Digby is also an important character as we see his ideas of alchemy and science developing, and Eyre seems to suggest that Kenelm has a link to the future by means of which he gets snippets of information, which I felt personally added nothing to the story, but more on that later. Based on true events Eyre explores the story behind these people and the society of that time – a society just as obsessed with beauty and image as our current society seems to be. An original and quirky idea, executed very well. The novel is written in a modern variation of old English, if that might be an understandable definition, and that in itself made it a pleasure to read. A rather more trivial aspect, but still to be noted; the book itself is beautiful, the pages slightly yellowed, the font rather old-fashioned and the cover truly eye-catching, which is why I noticed it in the store in the first place. I must say that now reading the summary I see that it does represent the general idea of the story. However when I read it knowing nothing of the book, I did feel it would be a more extensive novel about that time, but it was predominantly about beauty and how we perceive ourselves, and the fears of ageing, as well as the consequences which might arise due to unnatural techniques used to stop time. The reason why I am not entirely convinced by this book, is because I felt it lacked something. Though in some aspects it could have used a little less of other elements. For example, returning to the fragments of contemporary references – I failed to see why they were entirely relevant. It was never truly explained, and I don’t see this as a spoiler per se, since I had the feeling at the very beginning that these scraps would have no true significance to the story. If Eyre used them to point out the clear link between the ideas of that time and nowadays where image is concerned, I felt it was unnecessary, because I feel that any reader would discern this for himself and to have this pointed out feels slightly like an insult.
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