The Widow's Ascension. (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "The Widow's Ascension. (en Inglés)"
Meet Marcia Kadolez, aged 26 and highly intelligent. then hold on for a (very tongue-in-cheek) rollicking, unique, insanely twisting modern political saga as she deals and wheels like a modern female Machiavelli. The storyline was created when TIME magazine ran an article describing how Mafia wives were stepping into their husbands' shoes as their menfolk were killed or imprisoned. The novel is set on a fictitious island off the western Dalmatian coast in central Europe, is extremely mountainous, with only one large town and one sealed road that keeps largely to the coast. The mainly peasant population is slowly accepting the new growth industry -tourism- which is eroding male dominance as more women are employed by the emerging service industries, but the island's veneer is still thin at times. "The Widow's Ascension" is the story of Marcia's bumpy rise to power as she meets each challenge. She secretly engineers her own kidnap to provide funds for her husband's mistress's impending motherhood, and then suddenly finds herself with a chance to take control of her husband's business and political interests when he is murdered. Escaping her kidnappers, she resuscitates her scheme to build a casino complex to encourage more tourists. Despite some negative traits she cares strongly for others, with little thought for herself. The schemes are to benefit her community. But her self-belief, plus her strong Catholicism, has a naïve simplicity. However her determination to succeed at any cost also means she can be very callous. She additionally has an obsessive hatred for her late father, whereas everyone else reveres him as a self-made politician who restored the island's self-respect. This blinds her to the fact she is actually using her father's (dubious) business techniques as she inches her way to success. She is, in fact, a modern, female version of Machiavelli, in a very male-dominated society. As the body count mounts, and the stakes get higher, even her supremely loyal bodyguard is forced to admit that helping her "is like serving God and the Devil at the same time".
