Sinners: A fiery historical tale of rebellion and survival in Renaissance Rome 📜🏛️
- The_Secret_Bookreview
- 11 hours ago
- 2 min read
A fiery feminist retelling of Beatrice Cenci’s tragic, silenced life.
Renaissance Rome, 1599.
A noblewoman waits in her prison cell at the Corte Savella, accused of the brutal murder of her father. Her name is Beatrice Cenci and history has either vilified her or turned her into a helpless saint.
But in Sinners, Elizabeth Fremantle gives her something else entirely: a voice.
This powerful book is a bold reimagining of Beatrice’s real-life story, breathing visceral life into a figure whose fate has long been dictated by others. The author paints her not as a passive victim, nor a calculating murderer, but as a girl caught between brutality and survival both a sinner and a saint.
From the moment we meet Beatrice, there’s a pulse of fury in the narrative. Fremantle doesn't shy away from the horrors of Beatrice’s life: imprisonment, abuse, isolation.
The emotional weight is palpable. Yet it’s precisely this unflinching portrayal that makes the quieter moments of connection, friendship, and even love so luminous. There’s a beautifully complex tenderness between Beatrice and her stepmother, a tentative, blooming relationship with Olympio, the keeper of her new prison and a simmering rage that is tightly coiled beneath every sentence.
This is not an easy book. But it is a necessary one.
The author’s meticulous research shows on every page, and her reimagining of this grim slice of history is both sensitive and searing. Beatrice’s world is vividly rendered: the crumbling stone of her confinement, the silent suffering of those around her, the oppressive weight of patriarchal Rome.
It’s a story soaked in injustice and resistance, and one that makes you question who truly holds the power to define a life.
Sinners asks a question that haunts you long after the final page:
Was she a helpless victim… or a resolute heroine?
For readers of historical fiction who crave depth, darkness, and fierce female voices, Sinners is utterly unmissable. Fremantle doesn’t just tell Beatrice’s story, she hands it back to her.
⚖️ Historical feminist retelling
💔 Themes: abuse, justice, survival, agency
Thank you to the team at Penguin Michael Joseph for sending me an ARC in time for the paperback release! The book is out now and available to purchase.
