Eleanore of Avignon depicts a young woman's courageous path in medieval France

The Provençal city of Avignon in 1347-48 is rife with tension and drama, with the Catholic popes in residence, Queen Joanna of Naples seeking exoneration from her first husband’s murder, the arrival of the plague, and a stressed-out, decimated populace looking for someone to blame. In her debut, DeLozier takes full advantage of her setting’s potential with her exciting story. It’s a quest novel in a sense, encompassing a young woman’s mission to fulfill her calling as a healer while holding her family together in a perilous time.

Eleanore (Elea) and Margot Blanchet are the twin daughters of a papal notary and his late spouse, a talented midwife. One day while seeking herbal remedies outside the city gates, Elea runs into Guy “Guigo” de Chauliac, a man of modest birth who rose to become Pope Clement’s personal physician.

Through a combination of chance and clever negotiations, Elea becomes Guigo’s apprentice and, later, midwife to the expectant Queen Joanna while the deadly pestilence rages through the city. As Guigo and Elea pore over medical texts and tend to patients, desperate to discover a cure, she strives to juggle her multiple responsibilities.

As with other novels where invented characters play big roles in the lives of real people, some plot elements may raise eyebrows, and Elea, while courageous and resourceful, takes some careless risks. The pacing never flags; DeLozier paints the atmosphere clearly without weighty exposition, and the novel’s historical scaffolding shines, especially the details on the two types of plague and their symptoms (as was documented by the real Chauliac, an eminent medieval surgeon).

Elea faces personal danger in the form of a fanatical priest who once targeted her late mother, raising the stakes even higher. An entertaining novel about a woman’s strength and selflessness, unfair prejudice, and the sisterly bond.

Eleanore of Avignon is published next week by Dutton; I'd reviewed it from NetGalley for the Historical Novels Review. The novel made the LibraryReads list for November (the top ten fiction and nonfiction works chosen by US public library staff), which I think is terrific.  A debut novel set in a less familiar place in medieval times, and librarians and their readers are enthusiastic about it.  So let's have more of them! There is a thread related to witchcraft, so the novel fits that historical fiction trend as well.