May is caught stealing bread and is ready for any punishment. Except one that no one could have expected. She is branded as a sin eater, destined to eat the sins of the dying and dead so they can get to heaven. Her new role takes her to the court of Queen Bethany and uncovers a deadly plot…
The Sin Eater is a mix of history and fantasy. The characters are based on real life people from the sixteenth century, in particular the Tudor and Elizabethan courts.
There is a lot of darkness in this book as people repent their sins and try to atone for the past. There are big secrets as people confess: I liked the supernatural elements of the book and the hope this brings to the people. Alongside this are the secrets of the court that have been hidden for years and could bring down the queen.
Poor May is desperate and alone. Her new role brings her into contact with many people who despise her and I felt dreadfully sorry for her situation. There is plenty of mystery and danger as May negotiates her way through this alternate Tudor realm.
As you may know from many previous mentions on my blog, my degree is in history and I am addicted to the Tudors. The history depicted is very familiar to me and also credible but I like the fictional additions and fantasy embellishments. I felt immersed in the story and the history and geography have been well researched as well as expanded upon.
The Sin Eater was a curious mix of unique and familiar, full of life and death, hope and darkness.
Book blurb
For the crime of stealing bread, fourteen-year-old May receives a life sentence: she must become a Sin Eater—a shunned woman, brutally marked, whose fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat ritual foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven.
Orphaned and friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she barely understands. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it represents, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.
