Burning Questions about The Atwells Avenue Anomaly Answered

The Atwells Avenue Anomaly is a short science fantasy read that really gets people talking! In this video, I answer a few reader comments about my new release. 

You'll hear about a portal to another universe, see a couple of beautiful illustrations, and dream about an infinite library! 

Amazing Book Debuts in Three Languages to Honor the Most Bookish King in the Year of His 800th Birthday with Cover Reveals

November 23, 2021, marks eight hundred years since King Alfonso X, el Sabio, came into the world. He earned his sobriquet, which means "the Wise," or "the Learned," by encouraging scientific developments that influenced astronomers for centuries, and setting his workshop to writing histories and the incomparably wonderful Cantigas de Santa Maria, among other projects. 

In addition to the ten happy, miraculous stories in Our Lady's Troubadour, I'm going to publish a companion volume, a novella based on the plot of Cantiga 5, Empress of Misfortune. The scope of Empress Beatriz's thrilling adventures simply would not fit in with the other stories, so she's going it alone, and will appear this fall shortly before Our Lady's Troubadour. 

The cover image, which my newsletter subscribers got a first look at in June, is just a taste of the masterpiece medieval illustrations I'm including with the story. 

My newsletter subscribers will have the chance to receive this harrowing tale of resilience and the redemption of innocence for free. 

Las conmemoraciones alfonsinas siguen con la edición de mi libro de crítica literaria en español con el título La ley y el orden en la España medieval. Traducido por un joven promesa, Diego Alejandro Parrilla, este libro investiga el punto de vista del rey a través de las Cantigas de Santa María y su obra legislativa para pasar un rato en el mundo idealizado que el rey deseaba que fuera la Castilla del siglo XIII. 

(The celebrations of Alfonso X continue with the well-timed appearance of my nonfiction examination of his worldview, Law and Order in Medieval Spain, in Spanish as La ley y el orden en la España medieval.) 

"That's still only two languages," you say.

Never fear, the third comes with the spectacular news that Seven Noble Knights is being released in Italian from Vintage Editores. I don't speak Italian, but if that's your reading language of choice, an epic story of family, love, and revenge in the exotic locations of medieval Spain await you! It will be available in September, which feels right because Settembre = Sette nobili cavalieri. 

As you know, Seven Noble Knights is based on texts found in Alfonso X's history book Estoria de Espanna. My 2021 is all about Alfonso X! Eight hundred years of studiousness, baby! 

Announcing Our Lady's Troubadour, Historical Fiction from My Heart, with Cover Reveal

I've been pounding away at the keyboard, seriously. You can hardly see the letters anymore, my nails have been scraping them off so much! This has been almost all to bring you a book that's really important to me: Our Lady's Troubadour and Other Miraculous Tales from the Cantigas de Santa Maria in Honor of Alfonso X, el Sabio. 

Alfonso X is my favorite king because he has a reputation for loving learning. His legacy includes histories, astronomy, legislation, and his masterwork, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which is the largest collection of Marian miracles ever set to music. They survive in four deluxe manuscripts that emphasize how important these songs were to the king. 

November 23, 2021, marks 800 years since the birth of Alfonso X. There are a few conferences, concerts, and plays scheduled in places such as Toledo and Sevilla, but for a while there, the pandemic made it seem none of that would be possible. So I ramped up a project I'd started years ago, adapting some of the stories from the Cantigas into a short story collection. 

With a last push during confinement (lockdown), and the go-ahead from my publisher, Encircle Publications, years of love, devotion, writing, and editing, have resulted in Our Lady's Troubadour, ten short stories set in an ideal medieval Spain with problems and perils, but always happy endings. It will release on November 17, 2021, in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. 

November 17 was the birthday of my beloved husband, Stanley, so I'm touched to be able to add that small tribute to this project that's so important to me. 

The cover is based on one of the miniatures in the most important Cantigas codex. In it, Alfonso X himself points out to St. Mary and attendant saints and an angel all the wonderful ways he's sung her praises. Alfonso is shown to have direct access to St. Mary many times in the Cantigas, and this (unorthodox, bordering heretical) close relationship is unique in medieval European art. I always love something wonderful that much more if it's unique. 

More about this joyful new book coming soon!

Este tributo desde el fondo de mi corazón sale el mismo día 17 de noviembre en castellano con el título de Trovador de Santa María. El 3 de diciembre, habrá en Zamora una presentación del libro con música, y con un poco de suerte, también en Toledo.

(This heartfelt tribute will appear simultaneously in Spanish as Trovador de Santa Maria, and I'm planning an in-person book launch in my medieval city of Zamora, hopefully with an appearance to follow in Toledo.)