Before Ari­ana Franklin started her Mis­tress of the Art of Death his­tor­i­cal mys­tery series, she wrote excel­lent his­tor­i­cal fic­tion nov­els under her real name of Diana Nor­man. I found out about Diana Nor­man from Jayne at Dear Author a long, long time ago. I went and bought up her back list. Many of her older fic­tion books are sadly, out of print and dif­fi­cult to find and quite costly. I own all of her books and feel that she was def­i­nitely worth it to me. Hope­fully, if she’s doing well sales-wise with her newer books, maybe her pub­lisher will release her older titles someday?

But any­way, The Vizard Mask tells the story of Puri­tan Pen­i­tence Hurd, a young girl who has left Amer­ica to find her mother in Lon­don. It’s also set dur­ing the Restora­tion Period. As that first sen­tence states,

Pen­i­tance Hurd and the Plague arrived in Lon­don on the same day.

The story is all about Pen­i­tence Hurd. I think the story spans 25 years open­ing with Charles II on the throne and ends with Mary of Orange. I read this book twice back to back and would still say that today this book would be a ter­rific read as it is cer­tainly worth finding.

The scene: Once Pen­i­tence has arrived in Lon­don, she stays in a brothel called the Cock & Pie. Just like I men­tioned ear­lier, the Plague has hit Lon­don hard. Pen­i­tence along with the actor, Henry King put on a play, some­thing by Shake­speare called, Much Ado About Noth­ing, in order to dis­tract the Watch. A fam­ily who were sus­pected of hav­ing the Plague are ‘Shut Up’ for 40 days & 40 nights and that was a death sen­tence. So the play is just a ruse for the fam­ily to make good their escape.

So, Pen­i­tence is rehears­ing her part. She’s afraid she’s going to mess up things because she has a habit of stut­ter­ing. Henry King comes to her res­cue and tells her to breathe:

The actor was in front of her now. ‘Breathe.’ She breathed, her eyes fixed on his.
“Who are you?“
“I am Beat­rice.“
“Are you rich? Beau­ti­ful? Witty?“
“Yes.“
“Who am I?“
“Benedick.“
“Do you love me?“
“Yes.”

He extended his hand, palm-upwards. She put her own on it and together they walked out on to the balcony

The Vizard Mask is a his­tor­i­cal fic­tion novel that was deeply mov­ing, enter­tain­ing and mem­o­rable. It has a won­der­ful love-story along with other parts that were full of sus­pense and polit­i­cal intrigue. The Vizard Mask is one of my favorite books and while I quoted to you one my favorite scenes, there are plenty more where that came from. And yes, Henry King is one of the best heroes I’ve ever run across in fic­tion. He’s mys­te­ri­ous, witty, charm­ing and he made an impact on Penitence’s life. Excel­lent book.

Note: I’ve read the fol­low­ing and rec­om­mend them highly: Blood Royal, A Catch of Con­se­quence and Tak­ing Lib­er­ties under Diana Nor­man. Ari­ana Franklin’s medieval mys­ter­ies are awe­some as well as her stand alone novel, City of Shad­ows. Awe­some writer all around.