The Fire and the Light: A Novel of the Cathars - Brossura

Craney, Glen

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0996154108 ISBN 13: 9780996154109

Casa editrice: Brigid's Fire Press, 2015

Riassunto

In medieval France, heretics protect an ancient scroll that holds shattering revelations about the Roman Catholic Church. Swept up in the brutal Albigensian Crusade, a charismatic Occitan noblewoman who will become revered as the Cathar Joan of Arc defies a powerful pope and champions her persecuted faith in this historical epic of religious intrigue, crusader knights, troubadour valor, and star-crossed love.

• Foreword Book-of-the-Year Finalist/Honorable Mention Winner for Historical Fiction
• NIEA Award for Best New Fiction
  
• Nautilus Silver Award
• IPPY Silver Award
• Eric Hoffer Award Finalist/Honorable Mention
• Da Vinci Eye Award Finalist 

As the 13th century dawns, Latin Christendom is shaken by spiritual upheaval. In Rome, Pope Innocent III plots to crush a growing pacifist sect whose members believe the Vatican has corrupted Christ's teachings. In the Holy Land, warrior-monks make a disturbing discovery about Jesus of Nazareth. In southern France, roving troubadours sing of a mysterious Holy Grail that offers salvation through the intercession of a worthy lady.

And in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains, a charismatic viscountess, Esclarmonde de Foix, is about to challenge the most powerful pontiff in history and hurl the Church into a crisis of divine authority.

Esclarmonde is a popular maiden in Occitania’s fabled Courts of Love, but her idyllic life is thrown into turmoil when she encounters a sect of hunted heretics called Cathars, the Good Men and Good Women. With war clouds gathering over the Languedoc, she must choose between her love for a mysterious Knight Templar and her calling to lead these persecuted descendants of the first Christians. In the tradition of Mary Magdalene, she ordains women as perfectas, teaches esoteric spiritual disciplines, and publicly debates the future leaders of the Inquisition on Christ's suppressed teachings. Desperate to suppress her popular preaching, Pope Innocent III condemns her ex cathedra and launches the only crusade ever declared against fellow Christians.

The outnumbered Occitan defenders of Esclarmonde's Cathar family and followers make their final stand atop Montsegur, a haunting mountain fortress where they protect a secret treasure suspected by some to be the Holy Grail. Their heroic resistance against the Dominican Inquisition and the French crusader army evokes the legendary defiance of the Jewish rebels against the Roman legions at Masada.

The Fire and the Light is a sweeping saga of crusading fanaticism, courtly romance, Vatican intrigue, and monastic conspiracy set during the infamous Albigensian Crusade.

Editorial Praise:

"I loved this book! Mr. Craney has woven a wonderful story around the little known facts and the many myths that surround St. Esclarmonde de Foix and the Cathars at Montsegur. Get thee to a bookseller!" — Rev. Mother Anastasia, Abbess of the Order of St. Esclarmonde

"This book is clearly well-researched, but more importantly for a novel, it tells a thoroughly engrossing story." — Ann K. D. Myers, The Historical Novel Society

“A marvel of a tale, tied quite firmly into what facts there are, and woven deftly into a tapestry touching those facts and connecting them into a tale at once enjoyable and alarming.” — ThoughtsandPlaces Reviews

"Tenets of the Cathar faith are explained and many of Esclarmonde’s mystical experiences beautifully rendered." — Bookcrossing

Su questo libro

L'autore:

A native Hoosier, GLEN CRANEY is a novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and lawyer. He caught the history bug as a boy while tracing the steps of his ancestors on Civil War battlefields and the reconstructed forts of the first Kentucky pioneers. His travels around the world have found him playing baseball in Cuba, walking the biblical sites of Israel, exploring the Secret Vatican Archives in Rome, and climbing Templar castles in Scotland and France. His books have taken readers to Occitania during the Albigensian Crusade, to the Scotland of Robert the Bruce, to Portugal during the Age of Discovery, to the trenches of France during World War I, and to the American Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. He graduated from Hanover College with a major in history and holds graduate degrees from Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. After a stint as a trial lawyer, he joined the Washington, D.C. press corps to report on national politics and the Iran-contra trial for Congressional Quarterly magazine. He then moved to California to write movie scripts, and his feature screenplay, Whisper the Wind, about the Navajo codetalkers of World War II, was awarded the Nicholl Fellowship Prize by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences for best new screenwriting. With the encouragement of his mentor, Hollywood legend Harry Essex, he tried his hand at historical fiction and mystery-thrillers, and has never looked back. His debut historical novel, The Fire and the Light, was named Best New Fiction by the National Indie Excellence Awards. He is also a three-time indieBRAG Medallion Honoree, a Chaucer Award First-Place Winner, a three-time Foreword Reviews Book-of-the-Year Award Finalist, a Scéal Mystery-Thriller Award Finalist, a Nautilus Silver Award Winner, an IPPY Silver Award Winner, an Eric Hoffer Finalist and Honorable Mention Winner, a Da Vinci Eye Award Finalist, and a BTS Readers Choice Award Honorable Mention.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Brigid's Fire Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0996154108
• ISBN 13: 9780996154109
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 504