On September 25th, a novel we have been eagerly waiting for was released: Lineage of blood (original title: Estirpe de sangre) by Sandra Aza, published by Planeta. After Libel of Blood (original title: Líbelo de sangre) success, where the author left us hanging, showing us the streets and misery of Madrid’s golden Age, she now takes us into the world of aristocracy. Lineage of blood, the continuation of Libel of Blood brings back the characters we fell in love with and ties up the loose ends, picking up where we left off.
It is time to restore the family’s honor, it is time for vengeance.
After the auto-da-fé that left him as an orphan, Alonso goes to the orphanage to bring back his brother Diego. However, there he faces the worst news when he is told the boy died shortly after arriving. Broken in sadness, he leans on his friends Juan and Antonio, who help him get through this new loss, diving him into the tough but fascinating world of the picaresque. He survives Madrid’s streets; he is fourteen but looks and claims to be sixteen. He lives wildly, getting by with theft and gambling in gambling dens. Alonso has a mission, one that he has vowed himself: studying Law, becoming a lawyer and bringing back his family’s honor. He does not want vengeance if it’s not legal, he wants justice to punish the guilty and recognize his parents’ innocence. Only then he will reclaim his identity. Overall, when he becomes a lawyer, he wants to claim justice for those who, even deserving it, have been denied it. He wants to deliver justice, from justice.
One night, they rescue Don Gonzalo Soto de Armendía, marquis of Velarde from a robbery, and in gratitude he takes them into his service. This new turn in Alonso’s life will open the doors to a different Madrid, a quite different one from the one he knows, the world of aristocracy. It will dive him into endless adventures and misadventures, it will make him cross paths with people who will shape both his future and his past and, above all, it will bring him the chance to fulfil his vengeance and reestablish the Castros’ honor.
Along with the plot, characters and historical context, suspense and emotion are the two standing-out ingredients of Lineage of blood. As for the suspense, the author employs Hitchcock’s recipe, the one he sums up like: A man is sitting on an armchair underneath which there’s a bomb, he doesn’t know it, but the audience does. In other words, the audience –the reader in this case– always knows more than the characters. That contrast fills the book with tension.
On the other hand, the underlying themes on Lineage of blood come wrapped in intrigue worthy of the best examples of the genre. This comes evident in the finale, when a various group of characters come together, each with a different task. –Everyone to work, the game has started– to unmask the Valcarcels and resolve once and for all everything linked to the libel of blood and its consequences. This diverse crew that, among other things, must track down the missing witnesses of the Valcarcels’ crimes, there’s nobles, commoners, a fugitive from the galleys, a smart lawyer with a dark past, and a key witness: a mute boy.
One of the novel’s big secret weapons is to portray a social tapestry of the era through its characters. They go from aristocracy to the lower classes. As in the previous novel, the author masterfully hatches the multiple threads that form Lineage of blood, an absorbing warp of characters, situations and coincidences (or casualties) that shape the development of the events. As one of the characters says, it’s a story in which the strings are pulled by fate. Or, as Alonso says towards the ending, Neither life nor love write the story as we like it.
A wonderful novel, that I’m certain will captivate the readers that are already fans of Libel of blood and will draw those few that haven’t yet read the first one. Sandra Aza has managed to, with this duology, write the great novel about Madrid, that had yet to be written.
