Crossing to Paradise (review)

Gatty, the peasant girl introduced in Crossley-Holland’s Arthur trilogy (see The Seeing Stone, BCCB 2/02, etc.), is now an orphan, and she’s been sent by Sir John de Caldicot and his wife to their friend, Lady Gwyneth de Ewloe, who will train the fifteen-year-old as a second chamber servant. Gatty learns upon her arrival that there’s more to her duties than she suspected: she’s to accompany Lady Gwyneth and several members of her household and estate on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where her mistress hopes to atone for her sins. Gatty is amenable to the journey, since it also means she will receive instruction in reading, writing, and singing, and it may even afford her an opportunity to run across the Caldicot son, Arthur, who has gone ahead on a Crusade. Although her headstrong ways upset the schedule and even endanger the lives of the party on more than one occasion, Gatty nonetheless becomes a favorite of her new mistress, and as Lady Gwyneth lies dying in Venice from what is probably a burst appendix, Gatty promises to continue on to the Holy Land and pray at the shrines for her redemption. This is an engaging tale packed with all the sights and encounters readers would expect from a medieval road trip, from perilous missteps along a narrow mountain pass, to a robber that specializes in body parts, to gracious Jerusalem hosts who astonish Gatty with their mixed faith (Christian and Muslim) marriage. The plot stands so sturdily on its own that readers unfamiliar with the preceding trilogy may not even suspect they’ve missed a reference until Merlin appears—incongruously, perhaps, for historical fiction fans—in the closing pages. Adventure, topped off with a romantic happily-ever-after, is a reader’s ticket to paradise.