Eleanora is 18 years old and her father’s world. He raises his daughter in the spirit of her mother, free of convention and gender roles, taking pride in her intelligence and valuing her opinions. She has learned the ways of her father, a doctor/healer, always at his side. As a result, Eleanora stands out in early twentieth century Albania. She dreams of attending a prestigious art school in Italy someday, which her father assures he will help her do. That dream shatters, however, when her father is shot dead in the street as an act of vengeance.

Eleanora, devastated and distraught, returns home to their remote mountain village and her stepmother, Meria. Meria has never quite understood the bond between father and daughter, nor her husband allowing his daughter to live more like a man than a woman. Eleanora is really rather helpless when it comes to doing any of the household duties relegated to the women, and this creates quite a bit of tension between the two women. Having run out of money and food, the two are close to starvation. In an act of desperation, Meria agrees to marry Eleanora off to a wealthy friend’s son. Eleanora had previously spurned Edi, the man she is to marry, due to his cruelness to women, and when she learns of her stepmother’s deal, she feels both betrayed and angry.

Following an ancient tradition, Eleanora declares herself a Sworn Virgin, giving her the freedom to live as a man and as head of the household on the condition that she remain a virgin for the rest of her life. As a Sworn Virgin, she is allowed to participate in blood feuds like the one that resulted in her father’s death, but she herself cannot be killed. Unless, of course, she breaks her vow.

Eleanora is determined to avenge her father’s death and uncover the reason why someone would want him dead. She cannot imagine why anyone would want her father dead. He was a kind and well-respected man. Eleanora knew he had loved her mother immensely. Her mother had died in childbirth, and she had not known much about her at all or where she came from.

I was drawn to Eleanora’s courage and spunk, but at times found her to be extremely naïve and spoiled. She has a mean streak which comes out when she acts without thinking. I put a lot of that off as her being only eighteen and not really understanding the ways of the world she lives in. Her father kept her rather sheltered. Even so, she has tenacity, and her sense of survival is strong. She takes up hunting and learns the skills she needs to care for herself as time goes by.

I felt for Meria. Her heart seemed in the right place, and I think Eleanora was unnecessarily mean to her even though I did understand Eleanora's anger and where it was coming from. Meria is tied deeply in tradition and turns to that for survival’s sake. I think she made bad choices, but I do not think her intentions were to be cruel.

Eleanora is a free spirit and young, never knowing what love really was. I admit I wondered at the relationship she developed with the injured stranger who appeared at her door, him being so much older, and both she and Meria being in such a needy state at that particular time in their lives. I saw less of a romantic love between them, despite Eleanora’s own ideas, and more of a young woman searching out a father figure. It was interesting to see how that all played out in the novel, given my suspicions.

Kristopher Dukes brings the Albanian mountain clans and their traditions to life in The Sworn Virgin. It is not a setting I am all too familiar with, and I found the very idea of the Sworn Virgin fascinating. I had never heard of the tradition before, and ended up digging a little deeper online as I read the book to find out more about the practice.

Overall, I enjoyed The Sworn Virgin. Eleanora grows over the course of the novel, becoming more self-sufficient, and as she learns about her mother and father’s relationship and exactly why her father had been killed. I liked Kristopher Dukes’ writing and will definitely look for more by her in the future. ( )

This is a reluctant recommendation. Superb writing. Complex plot. Brilliant subject based on true circumstances: women left with little choice but to become men to own their own lives but under severe penalty for breaking that oath. Extremely unlikeable characters, who never fulfill expectations for a complex plot and brilliant subject matter. They just remain irritating characters without redemption. ( )

Impressively researched and deftly plotted. One of the pleasures of historical fiction is learning about a new time and place, and here we’re transported to 1910 Albania, where gender roles are rigid and society is ruled by convention. Eleanora, our main character, rebels against gender conventions in a fascinating way, by becoming what’s known as a “sworn virgin,” meaning she’s suddenly treated like a man. One of the difficulties of writing about a place that’s so conventional is how to break free from convention in the narrative itself. For example, dialog in this part of the world is often highly scripted, meaning some of the characters can sound stilted and wooden when they speak. But I soon realized that this was part of the convention that Eleanora herself was rebelling against. The ending (which I won’t give away) also skirts close to convention in a different way before rejecting it in favor of a more ambiguous conclusion, which I found more in keeping with the novel’s overall theme of struggling against convention—a theme that’s explored in many interesting ways in this worthy first novel.

Note: I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
( )

I really adored this book.

I firstly want to thank Kristopher Dukes for providing me with a copy of her book (yes, HER. Such a badass name for a badass woman.)

I secondly want to gush about how much I loved this story and how much I loved Eleanora. Let me start by saying that I knew absolutely nothing at all about Albania in the early 20th century. What a cool setting for a book. So original. I knew nothing of the mountain village cultures and the roles that males and females played in society. Feuds between families is a major theme in this novel and it affects all the characters, both the good ones and the bad ones. Blood feuds rip apart families until there aren't any left, a really dreadful but intensely fascinating Albanian custom.

Eleanora, to avoid an arranged marriage to a terrible man, declares herself a sworn virgin so that she can, in all intents and purposes, become a man. If not in body, in tradition. Once a sworn virgin, she is literally sworn to virginity, but she is granted the rights that an Albanian man would be. She needs no man's permission for anything she does, and if that doesn't just fit Eleanora to the T.

Eleanora is totally headstrong, independent and brave. Yet she is still just a girl. She is scared, she is filled with the need to be cared for and looked after, and I think she struggles with this dichotomy. To be seen as an independent man, strong and grown up, yet really, she is just a child. She isn't totally ready for the life that was handed to her in an instant. A mere string of sentences in a moment of danger changed her life forever.

I learned so much about these very specific Albanian traditions and customs that I had never even known existed. This was a legitimate page-turner, and I hated to put it down when I had to get off the train to go to work.

I believe there is more of Eleanora's story in the works, and I cannot wait for when I can continue her journey with her! I can't wait to see what that little girl with the huge heart and rip-roaring independence will do next. ( )

Well-written although at time slow, it was a truly interesting novel of struggle and finding your place as a female in a male-dominant society. The details from the types of clothing to the cultural protocol helped the story come alive and demonstrate what life is like for another demographic in a remote part of the world that we may not have otherwise heard of. ( )