Review: "Canticle" by Janet Rich Edwards

Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards
Published December 2025 via Spiegel & Grau
★★★★

It's late 13th-century Bruges, and Aleys is on fire for God. She dreams of a contemplative life; she dreams of being wedded to God; she dreams of being a martyr. She's resigned to a quiet, faithful life at home, but when her father goes back on his promise to let her remain single, things change...and she's catapulted into a role where she is suddenly much more visible to the people of Bruges and much more visible, it seems, to God.

But people are fickle. Fame is fickle. And favor is fickle...and Aleys might find that getting exactly what she wanted is more than she bargained for.

She wonders which is worse—to be idolized or despised. (loc. 3773*)

I picked this up out of curiosity about beguines and beguinages, which I'd heard of but never read in detail about. Beguinages were ~medieval European institutions not too dissimilar to convents, housing groups of women (beguines) who had committed to a communal religious life without taking formal vows. I read it as a way for women to live independently in a time and place that did not afford many options for single (widowed, separated, poor, etc.) women.

As it turns out, Aleys's stay in the beguinage is temporary—beguines are not, to her, particularly respectable, and in any case a life with them is not what she has dreamed of. I was fascinated by the material about anchorites (another role I'd heard about but not read about), and just all of the details about the influence of religion in that time and place. Buying discounted pardons and "stocking up for a life of depravity" (loc. 386), the power of a confessor over a confessee, the church's gatekeeping of the Bible, the use of belief to consolidate power. (Some of these things are not so different today.) I wouldn't have minded a little more about the paths of Aleys's siblings, but the book makes strategic shifts between points of view to keep things fresh and let the reader see a bit more than a cell. A good one for fans of historical fiction and for those curious about beguines, anchorages, mystics, and saints.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.