Unexpected Marie – Books and Literature

Review of the book “Unexpected Marie”, by James Tablessi

Obviously, no one chooses to be born where they are born or into the family they are assigned to. Sometimes, all this coincidence can be a blessing, other times, however, it can be a real calamity that will inevitably mark our destiny.

It would be very basic of me to summarize the premise of Unexpected Mariethe new literary bet of Books and Literature with that introduction, but let’s say that we can start from that base to present to you this spectacular novel by James Tablessi that I review today.

In your hands, reader, you will find Marie’s testimony, but also that of her parents and, at the same time, a perfect x-ray of the times in which they lived.

In this way, in the first part of the book, we learn the story of Álvaro de Zuricalday, a young lawyer from Bilbao who, after the death of his father, decides to try his luck in Madrid. The young man’s affable character led him to earn his well-deserved place among the Madrid society of the time. In this way, at a party in a palace with the best of the bestÁlvaro meets the young Catalina, with whom he will fall in love and from whom he will decide never to be separated again.

Together with Manuel, a trusted driver, Catalina and the rest of his friends, Álvaro decides to settle permanently in the capital.

The news of Catalina’s pregnancy comes unexpectedly. Soon, they rush to get married and, to avoid comments from a society that is still retrograde on these issues, they decide to coincide the honeymoon with the birth of the baby: a beautiful girl who they will call Marie, our Unexpected Marie.

Born in France, her parents, with all their pain, decide to leave her there in the care of madame Charlotte Labelle and with the supervision of Baudin, the doctor who attended the birth. Together they return to Spain to plan a retreat for Catalina, after which they will make the girl known. But not everything goes as expected.

Thus we enter the second part of this novel, where we learn the first-person testimony of Marie herself. Since she was little, our protagonist knew that she had to earn her place in the world. A childhood based on longings and memories, of a life that promised to be his, but that her destiny took away from him.

I wouldn’t want to go much deeper into the plot, as I might run the risk of revealing too much to you. Unexpected Marie It has been a real surprise for me. With this novel, James Tablessi manages to excite and awaken very pleasant feelings in the reader with delicious, well-worked and careful prose. I must also point out the spectacular and rigorous setting of the novel, which immerses us in a turbulent time of changes and absurd ideologies that did so much damage.

A wonderful novel about destiny, coincidences, guilt, longing and the passage of time. Unexpected Marieedited by Books and Literature It is, without a doubt, a literary surprise, a gem that has moved me and that I can only recommend to you.