Empress of Misfortune, a Big Little Novella, Out Now!

I've been working on a very special story that's so big, it outgrew the confines of forthcoming Our Lady's Troubadour. 

It started as a short story for Our Lady's Troubadour, but there was just so much to tell, it became a novelette, and now I'd like to share this brand-new, imaginative historical novella, Empress of Misfortune, with you. 

Description: 

In an Ancient Rome that never was, Empress Beatriz is surrounded by loyal subjects and the emperor, who cherishes her above all else. Due to one man’s lust and greed, she must fight, alone, for her dignity—and her life.

The primeval tale of the valiant empress has been adapted from Cantiga 5 of the thirteenth-century Spanish Cantigas de Santa Maria. Though this volume stands alone, it is also a companion to the ten short stories in Our Lady’s Troubadour (Encircle Publications, 2021).

Between fantasy and history, this thrilling novella takes us on an imaginary tour of the ancient Mediterranean and inspires us to rely on our own best nature.

Includes two deluxe color illustrations from the Códice rico of the Cantigas de Santa Maria.

Get Empress of Misfortune: 

99 cents at select outlets

Or sign up for my author newsletter and read this heart wrenching tale for free!

Excerpt
“Beatriz stood with her hands out and faced the wind, daring it to knock her into the water. A scream had been building inside her for years, since the moment Felix had laid his hands on her. It had gained power when Antoninus sent her to die without a second thought, when she lost the chance to see her children ever again, when Rufus embraced her, and especially when that miscreant robbed the world of little Evander. It stood back when the captain treated her humanely, and she hoped for a simple life in the East. But now that every person she’d ever cared for, every possibility for peace she’d ever come upon, and every hope she’d ever held to had been mercilessly taken from her, the scream pressed on her heart and clawed at her throat.

“She loosed it to the winds. No one heard it but St. Mary.”  –from Chapter VI

Early Review
“Empress of Misfortune reads as part fairy tale, part hagiography. It’s about piety but also about a woman taking charge of her destiny. The reader can’t help but like Beatriz and really want the villains to get their just deserts. The chapters end in a suspenseful way and make this reader want to turn the page.” —author Kim Rendfeld 

In other news, Kindle Press has decided to give everyone a chance to experience Providence's most mystical tradition, WaterFire, in October, just like the characters in Awash in Talent! October 5 - 11, Awash in Talent is only 99 cents in Kindle! Walk along the river, admiring the luminous pyres right along with Kelly and Brian, without having to travel. 

Great things are still to come in 2021! 

Buying Fruit in Spain

A selfie with the Romanesque Bridge in Zamora 

Everyone in the auxiliares de conversación program has had their first week of teaching now. In some online groups, there have been rumblings of homesickness and culture shock. It's a perfectly normal reaction to coming to a place where the language, culture, values, and even the time schedule are different.

With the cathedral 

To me, things are different in a good way. What's the opposite of culture shock? Culture cushion, perhaps? Definition: the feeling upon entering a country that everything at last makes sense, causing an intense sense of relief, like lying down on a cushion of the perfect softness; occurs only in people who suffer from nationality dysphoria.

As I mentioned in a previous post, when I was in the country of my birth, I always had a sense that something wasn't quite right—that I should be somewhere else. I'm in Spain now, and that tragic feeling lifted some time after I landed, perhaps while I was on the train, looking out the window at a castle I'd visited twelve years earlier.

At the Duero with the cathedral atop the rocky outcrop 

For me, it's natural that I should skip over culture shock. Spain has been the site of my longing for 30 years, I've studied Spanish almost that long, and I've been to Spain ten times before—ten of the best times of my life. I met my personal hero in Spain and he was more present and kind than I imagined he could be. I've won a few people over to loving Spain, including my sweet Stanley, who I'm told was stubbornly against trying new things when I wasn't around.

At my new favorite place,
San Pedro de la Nave 

When I arrived this, the eleventh time I've been to Spain, I immediately got a great apartment, had fun, got complimented on my Spanish, and met some fascinating people. I was walking down the street one day, and a lady started talking to me, as you do. After a few minutes of chatting, she asked if I was a writer, because of course that's what you ask people on the street. It turns out, she's the presidenta of a writers group here and she invited me to join them! They've published tons of books, won prizes, and give readings throughout Castilla y León. I went to a meeting last week, and I've never felt more at home in my life. I told them I was going to try writing stories in Spanish. Quite the goal.

Thrilled at the Center for the Interpretation of Medieval Cities 

So now you know why I look a little crazy in these selfies. Sometimes, happiness looks like a psychotic break with reality. But the photos are evidence: I'm really here!

At the castle. Who doesn't
love a good castle? 

What does the title of this post have to do with anything? The one time I felt like a foreigner in the past three weeks was when I attempted to buy fruit at a large supermarket the way I'm used to in America. No! In Spain, you do not let the cashier weigh and price your fresh fruit! What were you thinking? You have to weigh it and get a price printed out at the scale. You must be a foreign idiot, rejected by your country for being so dumb. (No one said this, just my active imagination.) I abandoned those tangerines in a hurry, ready to never eat fresh fruit again.

With the tapestries at the cathedral. I remembered to take off my
glasses for this one. 

The next time I was at the store, I was less overwhelmed by all the exciting Spanish food for sale, and focused enough to see where I had to weigh my apples and grapes. It makes perfect sense.

Radio Stars: Seven Noble Knights and Me

Portland's All Classical station is at the intersection of the river and the light rail. 

Picture it: You're an artist, and someone you're not related to and have never met and you know appreciates the type of art you do in general has seen your art and liked it enough to talk with you about it for thirty minutes at his radio station.

A selfie in the very moments when my authorial fame hits its zenith. 

Exciting? You bet. I know because it happened to me!

Ed Goldberg at Portland's All Classical is an avid reader, and I had the inestimable pleasure of chatting with him (at New York speed) about Seven Noble Knights.

Check it out and download it free at the station's site. It is also on iTunes (the J. K. Knauss March 1 track) also free. If you don't find it there, have a listen at the top of my Seven Noble Knights page! 

The view from the studio wouldn't be complete without rain clouds. 

As you'll see when you have a listen, we crammed a lot of information into thirty minutes! I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed making the recording. Doña Sancha, Don Gonzalo, their seven sons, Mudarra, and Doña Lambra await you!

Interview with Ron Shannon, Author of The Hedgerows of June

The Hedgerows of June is a suspenseful historical romance centering around the hotly contested Saint-Lô, France, in 1944. A British spy, and American expat, and a French Resistance operative must reunite children with their parents in this war-torn landscape while keeping their own secrets and resisting their own passions. 

Today I'm pleased to host the author of this irresistible adventure, Ron Shannon.

JK: Can you fill us in on the historical background of The Hedgerows of June? What was happening before the story begins?

RS: By late June, 1944, the Allies had taken the beaches of Normandy. The Americans had driven the Germans from the port city, Cherbourg, but not without heavy cost on both sides. The next American objective was to take the town of Saint-Lô, the transportation hub for this part of occupied France. The Germans were determined to defend Saint-Lô because they were convinced it would be the key to the Allies’ victory. The American inland attack would take place in the most inhospitable terrain of Normandy, an area known as the hedgerows.

JK: The Hedgerows?

RS: The Hedgerows are not what we think of when we think of hedges. They are not the hedge plants that are pruned and trimmed into precision cuts.

JK: So it wasn't a garden. Where exactly did the Allies find themselves?

RS: It’s difficult to describe what the Americans encountered as soon as they started their inland attack. This farmland has been around for a millennium or more. The landscape consists of fields bordered by grey rock. Think of a pile of rock running along all four sides of each field. These rock rows are about three feet wide. Growing up through this rock is a mixture of small trees, shrubs, grass and weeds that have grown from three to fifteen feet high. It creates what the French call bocage, an enclosed field with only one narrow entrance.

JK: Are there any roads in this maze?

RS: The roads running alongside the hedges are very narrow, between four or five feet wide. They're dirt roads with deep ruts from the traffic of horse-drawn wagons to and from the fields.

JK: How did they transport equipment through there?

RS: Getting equipment down the roads was difficult to impossible. But the difficulties didn’t end there. The summer of 1944 was the wettest summer since 1900. The weather was miserable and the roads were not dirt. They were mud.

JK: Wow. Misery makes for a great setting. What additional challenges did you give the characters?

RS: The characters in The Hedgerows of June are faced with the same problems as the American Army. They must get from a small town on the edge of the Hedgerows to Saint-Lô.

JK: They aren't going into battle?

RS: Not battle, but the war is all around them. It’s like background noise, small gunfire, explosions, and American fighter planes. The characters are trying to stay one step ahead of the Americans, but they are running into the face of the waiting Germans. That’s trouble because the German Army wants their precious cargo—the four children they must get to Saint-Lô.

JK: Where are the Germans?

RS: The Germans are taking up defense positions in the hedges. That means they are finding places to hide in the thick vegetation. The attacking Americans will not be able to hide if they are expected to move forward. They will be wide open.

JK: How can the Americans possibly overcome this no-win situation?

RS: The Americans had no experience with his type of terrain. To say they weren't prepared is an understatement. It would require cooperation between their armor and their infantry, something they were not trained to do.

JK: Did the Americans have any advantage?

RS: Not necessarily. The Germans were experienced. They had knowledge of the terrain and the benefit it offered them to defend the region. They were also very loyal and in some cases the most fanatical soldiers in the field.

JK: Were the Americans were better equipped?

RS: Again, not necessarily. At this point in the war, the German Air Force was pretty much nonexistent. The Americans did have an air force, but remember this is the wettest summer since 1900. The miserable weather made it impossible to fly for either reconnaissance or attack. The German soldier feared the American planes, but the bad weather kept the planes on the ground. The Germans lacked heavy artillery in Normandy, but they had guns. I mention one of their guns in the novel, a rocket launcher, an odd looking thing nicknamed “Moaning Minnie.”

JK: Weren’t there paratroopers, too?

RS: Paratroopers did land behind enemy lines in advance of the attacking Americans, but they were unable to hold their positions. Many of these paratroopers were lost. My story includes a confrontation with a small group of paratroopers. It is a graphic scene that changes one of the main characters. It brings her face-to-face with the horror of this war and how the Germans defended the bocage.

JK: How did the Americans get through in the end?

RS: You can imagine how difficult it was for the Americans to launch their attack into the Hedgerows. Soldiers did use the roads, but tanks were another story. Getting into the fields presented a problem. My characters were forced to crawl into the fields. They were wide open if Germans were hiding in the hedges. The same was true for the American soldier. At first the Americans used dynamite to blast a hole in the hedgerows, but obviously an explosion did not go unnoticed by the Germans. Someone came up with the idea of turning the tanks into plows. They retrieved steel from the traps and blockades used by the Germans to defend the beaches. The Americans welded the steel to the front of the tanks. They literally plowed their way into the fields. American soldiers quickly learned how to use the tanks as shields against enemy fire.

JK: Do your characters encounter all these techniques?

RS: The war catches up to the characters and they are introduced to techniques used on both sides. The war in the hedges is a series of skirmishes between small units as the Americans make their way across this implausible battleground. As I mentioned before, these skirmishes hang in the air like background noise. At times the background noise takes on a life of its own. In one scene, Chris is listening to distant gunfire. He is a musician and he compares it to a call, followed by an answer. It’s small arms fire shared by men in a land that doesn’t care about who they are or why they fight. The land, the bocage, will be there long after they are gone and their causes are forgotten. Or at least that is what Chris determines from what he hears.

JK: Where does it all come together?

RS: The characters’ destination is Saint-Lô. That is the town the Americans want to conquer and that is the town the Germans are determined to defend.

JK: What is the result of the historical Battle of Saint-Lô?

RS: The Americans manage to push back the Germans, but the tenacious Germans do not lose their will to fight. The skirmishes are fierce and bloody. I’ve seen pictures of roads and fields littered with the bodies of soldiers from both sides. Thousands of casualties occur during July of 1944. The Germans are outnumbered and many German soldiers are taken prisoner, but the defenses into Saint-Lô are tight. The Germans are obsessive.

JK: July?

RS: July. I know the title mentions June. That is when the journey and the adventure begin. I didn't adhere to the timeline of the battle. The battle started on July 1, 1944, and Saint-Lô was taken by the middle of August. Even getting into the city was a challenge. The American fighter planes managed to attack. Bombs were dropped; heavy artillery was used as the city crumbled into ruins. The only structure that survived was the church. The city was rebuilt later.

JK: Is the battle important in The Hedgerows of June?

RS: Yes. The battle for the city brings the characters into town. They're seeking further escape, but they're caught in the war. What happens determines the future of the characters.

JK: How?

RS: This is, among other things, a story about bravery and about accepting your true identity.

JK: So, without spoiling it, the characters survive?

RS: Well, it’s also a romance and a love story. What do you think?

The Hedgerows of June is available at Amazon.

Find author Ron Shannon on Facebook.