Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt Published by namelos llc on 2009-09-09
Pages: 216
Goodreads
Keturah is dying when she is approached by a young, handsome lord, melancholy and stern. He is Lord Death. Keturah is able to charm him with a story and thereby gain a reprieve'but only for twenty-four hours HONORS Top 10 Women's History Books for Youth?Booklist Best of the Best Books List produced by the Chicago Public Library National Book Award Finalist, Young People's Literature CCBC Choices Books for the Teen Age ?NYPL Pennsylvania School Librarians Association YA Top Forty List, Fiction ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award Winner, Bronze, Young Adult Fiction Bulletin Blue Ribbon, Fiction ?Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards, Master List, Young Adult Junior Library Guild selection
My Thoughts:
I randomly picked this book up at the bookstore yesterday. I vaguely remember hearing about it as a National Book Award finalist but that’s it. The cover is what really caught my attention. I really didn’t have any expectations going in to it.
This is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl named Keturah. She follows a great hart into the woods and is lost for three days. Finally she sits and waits for death since she can go on no more. Death shows up in the form of a handsome young man. She charms him with a story and is given a day to find her one true love or come with death that night. Knowing that she has but one day to live Keturah returns to her beloved village and does all she can to help the people and find her one true love. That night death comes for her and she weaves another story and is granted another day. This occurs until the climax of the story (which I won’t give away here!)
During her “bought” days Keturah tries her best to prevent the plague from coming to her small village, help her friends see that the men they love are in front of them, improve life for all the dear villagers AND find her one true love. I enjoyed this story. The writing flows nicely and makes the reading very enjoyable. I did have a problem reconciling the ending with the prologue. I’m still not quite sure I understand it and it certainly wasn’t what I expected/wanted to happen. Still, I’m liking it more as i go back and re-read it and consider it.
This is a great mix of medieval romance and fantasy. You have to love it when the peasant girl saves the day 🙂
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