2021's Most Commemorative Preorder! Our Lady's Troubadour

On November 23, 1221, 800 years ago, a baby boy was born in Toledo, Spain. He would go on to become King Alfonso X, el Sabio. He earned his wise reputation because he enthusiastically sought out knowledge wherever it could be found: in Europe, Africa, or Asia; with Christians, Jews, or Muslims. Attracting the top scholars of his time (a very sophisticated time!) to his court, Alfonso was the patron of works of science, literature, history, and law that have influenced scientists, authors, and lawyers for hundreds of years. 

This open-minded embracing of different cultures for the betterment of humanity should be celebrated now more than ever. I'm doing just that with Our Lady's Troubadour. It's a book of ten short stories based on Alfonso's greatest work, the Cantigas de Santa Maria. The stories tell of people just like you and me dealing with relatable problems--and finding miraculous solutions. 

I'm so excited to see Our Lady's Troubadour out in the world! It will debut on November 17, 2021. November 17 was my husband's birthday. I'm so pleased to be able to honor two of the most important men in my life with one book! 

It's ready for preorder now, so you can be sure to have it in time to commemorate November 23. One ebook venue is here, and many sources for the paperback and hardback editions can be found here. 

The Spanish edition will be available on the same day! 

Happy 800th birthday, Alfonso! 

And grab your copy of the extraordinarily entertaining companion volume, Empress of Misfortune: 
- available for 99 cents at select outlets
- or FREE to my email subscribers 

In still historical, but not medieval, news: 

For October, I've gotten into the spirit of scary (the melancholic, Edgar Allan Poe kind) with a story based on the poem "The Lake." It's free to read on Vocal, and in fact, if you scroll to the bottom, you're really helping me out. Thanks! 

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! 

Enlarging the Family: Tree/House and Unpredictable Worlds Now Available in Portuguese

It is my great pleasure to announce the ebook release of Casa na Árvore and Mundos Imprevisíveis, two of my most imaginative books, in Portuguese! 

My writing is heavily influenced by magical realism, which is an important literary trend all over Latin America. So I'm thrilled that Tree/House and Unpredictable Worlds are now available in the two dominant languages of Latin America, Spanish and now beautiful, poetic Portuguese. 

I've done 500 days of Duolingo in Portuguese and taken a fantastic trip through northern Portugal with a Spaniard. My skills in this marvelous language leave something to be desired.

But they've been translated by two up-and-coming translators, and I trust that these stories are just as complex and thought-provoking in Portuguese. 

More information about Casa na Árvore here.

More information about Mundos Imprevisíveis here. 

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.) 

Announcing The Atwells Avenue Anomaly with Cover Reveal

The act of writing is very important in Awash in Talent, which is a novel made up of a journal required by a therapist, a young firestarter's secret diary, and a psychic therapist's case log. As I was finishing up the second section, Waterfire, I had an idea to explain where the manuscripts from that world populated with Talented people and those envious of them came from. I was going to frame the novel with the story of a down-on-his-luck Brown University professor stumbling onto a portal to another universe. In the end, I didn't use that text, but there may be a reference to a certain house on Atwells Ave in Providence at the end of Awash in Talent that has its origin in that idea. 

That idea, in turn, came about because of the long drop awaiting anyone walking out this door on Atwells Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island. I took this photo way back in 2008. 

In 2017, after Awash in Talent had been published, I took up the story of the dumb-luck professor in Providence as a kind of lifeline during the first year after my beloved husband passed away. The first part was well-received at the Tin House Summer Workshop that year, but it wasn't yet complete. 

Four years later, the story has become a novella that undermines every expectation a reader might have, The Atwells Avenue Anomaly. 

Here's the description and a first look at the cover (my newsletter subscribers got the first look):

A lonely English professor falls for a physics genius. His only chance to be with her might be in an alternate universe populated by flipper-footed birds and cats covered in rose petals. It's not only the low atmospheric oxygen that makes them lightheaded. 

When the happy couple is separated by chance, the physics genius must raise their brainy daughter with no other humans to ask for advice. Are scientific curiosity and the memory of love enough for mother and daughter to create their own world?

In this unique novella, the author of Awash in Talent and Unpredictable Worlds brings you a fast science fantasy read about isolation and belonging the editors of Hybrid Fiction have called "sweet, imaginative," and "engaging." 


The Atwells Avenue Anomaly will appear in ebook and paperback in August with exclusive illustrations by Shirley MacKenzie. Catch a small glimpse of the artistic wonders below. 

"Something of Monumental Proportions" by Shirley MacKenzie, 2021
Part of The Atwells Avenue Anomaly series. 

The Atwells Avenue Anomaly will debut at a low price so my devoted readers can save a few dollars. Don't miss it! Preorder here.