Valentine: A Love Story

Chet Raymo
Cowley Publications (2007)
ISBN 9781561012862
Reviewed by Stephanie Rollins for Reader Views (12/06)


I really did not want to read “Valentine” by Chet Raymo.  I do not like any story that is historical.  The cover of “Valentine” turned me off even more.  It reeked of history.

I was quite surprised that as I delved into the story, I could not put it down.  The love story really did not unfold until the end.  Until then, Chet Raymo blended history into this intriguing novel, and he made it exciting. 

He showed how the early Christians were considered to be superstitious, and traitorous.  He created characters that had to suffer for their religious beliefs.  As an American, I have always taken the right of religious freedom for granted.  I now realize how fortunate we are. 

Chet Raymo reminded me of the advances we have in medicine.  Valentine, a physician, was considered to be strange, because he actually studied medicine.  On the other hand, there were many other healers who simply were ignorant of physiology and pharmacy or were simply quacks. 

Perhaps the most unsettling tradition was that of the death matches in the amphitheatre.  Crowds would gather to see a person fight another person or animal until one dies.  The crowd enjoyed seeing it!  “Aptus, too, will thrill when his sword slips under the Egyptian’s helmet and the blood gushes downward like water spilled from a bowl.”

The fighting and death are seen as sexual.  “The managers of the games know what they are doing when they recruit the best looking female slaves for these diversions.  Every cock in the amphitheatre was stiff when she went down.”

The love story is between Valentine and Julia.  Valentine assisted in Julia’s birth.  He ended up falling in love with her.  When Valentine held Julia after her birth, he “was astonished at its miniature perfection.”  He describes his desire for her as a woman.  “I see Julia’s slender body—her breast, her belly, the cottony swelling of her sex.”  If you stop to think of that with today’s standards, that is a little twisted.  Just look past that.  Julia supports Valentine through imprisonment and escape. 

Julia is punished for her belief in Christianity by having to fight a pack of wolves in the amphitheatre.  Her father debates on whether or not to see his only child, who is blind, suffer a horrendous death.  He wants to go.  He thinks maybe his presence will provoke pity, leading to her release.  What if it does not?  He will see his daughter torn from limb to limb, chewed on and digested by beasts. 

“Valentine” is a page-turner.  Just when I thought the story had come to a finish, another turn was taken.  For a thrilling historical adventure, “Valentine” is a great choice.

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