Open Books Bestsellers
What's Trending in
The feminine spirit of the West comes alive in early twentieth century Montana.
Copper Sky
by Milana Marsenich
(Fiction)
Set in the Copper Camp of Butte, Montana in 1917, Copper Sky tells the story of two women with opposite lives. Kaly Shane, mired in prostitution, struggles to
find a safe home for her unborn child. Marika Lailich, a Slavic immigrant, dodges a pre-ar-ranged marriage to become a doctor. As their paths cross, and they become unlikely friends, neither woman knows the family secret that ties them together.
"Copper Sky is a riveting story of darkness and redemption, rising from the ashes of two fiery tragedies in Butte, Montana. Marsenich creates two heroines whose great losses lead them ever closer to truth. And as their stories unfold, the Butte of one hundred years ago startles to full and undeniable life." -- Phil Condon, author of Clay Center, Montana Surround, and Nine Ten Again
New & Noteworthy
Featured in
BookTube
Is love strong enough to save a kingdom and stop history from repeating itself?
Beneath the Same Heaven
by Anne Marie Ruff
A story of love and terrorism...
Beneath the Same Heaven is a love story of an American woman and a Pakistani-born Muslim man, who seem to have bridged the divide between Western and Islamic world views. But when the husband's father is killed by a US drone attack near the Afghan border, their cross-cultural family descends into conflicting ideas of loyalty, justice, identity, revenge, and terrorism.
Spotlight!
Wings of a Flying Tiger
by Iris Yang
World War Two. Japanese occupied China. One cousin's courage, and another's determination to help a wounded American pilot.
In the summer of 1942, Danny Hardy bails out of his fighter plane into a remote region of western China. With multiple injuries, malaria, and Japanese troops searching for him,
the America npilot’s odds of survival are slim.
Jasmine Bai, an art student who had been saved by Americans during the notorious Nanking Massacre, seems an unlikely heroine to rescue the wounded Flying Tiger. Daisy Bai, Jasmine’s younger cousin, also falls in love with the courageous American.
With the help of Daisy’s brother, an entire village opens its arms to heal a Flying Tiger with injured wings, but as a result of their charity the serenity of their community is forever shattered.
Love, sacrifice, kindness, and bravery all play a part in this heroic tale that takes place during one of the darkest hours of Chinese history.
Direct
Authors earn more
when you buy Direct
With candor, beauty, and unusual insight, their story reveals both how decent people can justify horrific acts, and the emotional power required to heal.
Now available from
Open Books
Featured in
Reviews, Interviews, Excerpts & more...
Read our current newsletter Visit our YouTube channel
Trade paperbacks & eBooks for all reading devices
Mr. Wizard
by Jeff Wallach
Two brothers. One mother. One big question.
Two days before her death, Jenny Elliot suggests to her fifty-year-old son Phillip that, being half-Irish, he should be more careful about his drinking. Phillip, along with his brother Spencer, has grown up believing they were the fully Jewish-
American offspring of Jenny and her late husband who died in the Vietnam War. Was his mother uttering some dementia-inspired fantasy, or was her true character shining through in her last moments to leave the brothers a clue to their real heritage? After her death, Philip decides to take a DNA test.
The brothers set off on a genetic treasure hunt in search of who they really are—and what that might mean. Are they purely products of their genetics; or were they formed more completely by their social interactions and upbringing? Are they merely victims of randomness; or are they some combination of those factors? And who, exactly, is Mr. Wizard?
Open Books Featured Titles
How to Collect Great Art on a Shoestring
David L. Gersh
A how-to guide for new and experienced collectors, How to Collect Great Art on a Shoestring explores the unique opportunity to acquire one-of-a-kind works for $2000 or $3000 by hundreds of mostly forgotten yet startlingly good artists who are in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, the Met, among many other museums.
Chechnya: The Inside Story
From Independence to War
by Mairbek Vatchagaev
In Chechnya: The Inside Story historian and former advisor to the president of Chechnya, Mairbek Vatchagaev chronicles the dramatic events that took place in Chechnya during the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Engaged on one side of the Russian-Chechen conflict, he presents what he witnessed, how he became involved, how the struggle with Russia and the internal Chechen rivalries evolved, and how it impacted his family, his friends, his acquaintances, and the Chechen people.
2018 Nautilus
Award
Winner!
Trailers, Quotes, The World of Literature, Did you know?
Much, much more!
Titles of Special Interest
A veteran and avid collector, Gersh offers pro tips on how, what, and which artists to look for while providing unique insights, an invaluable perspective, and a dash of humor into the world of collecting great art.
Recent and Upcoming Events with Open Books Authors
Scholarly and Academic titles from around the world
Nothing we think we know – NOTHING – is likely to be correct. If Ignorance is Bliss, We Should All Be Ecstatic by Fred Leavitt explores the limitations of knowledge and argues that neither reasoning nor direct observation can be trusted. Below is an exclusive excerpt from the book.
These 5 must-read books about women in the American Civil War feature strong, unforgettable women during one of the nation’s most studied and written about episodes in U.S. history.
Order Now!
Order now!
"A stunning
debut novel"
--Amazon Vine Voice
Postcards from the Borderlands
by David H. Mould
Exploring the meaning of borders in our world...
What are borders? Are they simply political and geographical, marked by posts, walls and fences, or should we think of them more broadly? Consider the borders within countries, determined by race, ethnicity, or caste. Borders may be physical and economic, and even perceptual—the borders of our minds.
In Postcards from the Borderlands, historian and journalist David Mould rambles through a dozen countries in Asia, Southern Africa and Eastern Europe by car, bus, train, shared taxi and ferry, exploring what borders mean to their peoples.
Featured Title 2020
Featured Title 2021
The Whisper of a Distant God
by David L. Gersh
The untold story of the Angel of Santa Fe and the Gettysburg of the West.
This is the story, based on historical events, of the little known War of New Mexico, of Henry Sibley, who commanded the Texas Mounted Volunteers, Edward R. S. Canby, the Union commander, and his wife Louisa, the Angel of Santa Fe. It explores the desperate struggle at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, called the Gettysburg of the West, and the men who fought on both sides. It examines the tragedies of war and the passion and compassion of those men and women who played a part.
Through letters, diaries, newspaper articles and both first and third person exposition and dialogue, this deeply-researched historical fiction tells of those who heard The Whisper of a Distant God.
Click image to read excerpt
From Tea to Coffee: The Journey of an "Educated Youth"
by Cheng Wang
Following Mao's call to the young during the Cultural Revolution, Cheng Wang, a so-called "Educated Youth", boarded a train destined for a secluded village in Inner Mongolia for the compulsory period of re-education. For the next three grueling years in rural exile, he pondered how his once-privileged family had been
Nevergreen: A Novel
by Andrew Pessin
A smart, fast, funny, and incisive portrait of today's liberal arts college scene, cancel culture—and more.
A chance encounter—if it is by chance—gives J. the opportunity he’s been hoping for but never expected would present itself. A physician in a midlife funk,
obsessed with paintings of corpses and dissections, he is asked to speak about his subject of interest at the beautiful and secluded island campus of Nevergreen College. “Welcome to the asylum!” announces the woman who arranged the invitation and greets him at the dock, and his restless stomach seems an eerie harbinger of what is to come—an initially curious and ultimately terrifying overview of academentia. No one actually shows up for his lecture, but that doesn’t stop it from becoming the center of a firestorm of controversy—with potentially fatal consequences.
Featured Title 2021
caught in a political undertow, and how his own future might unfold.
From Tea to Coffee is a story of struggle and triumph during China’s modern-day cultural and political drama, and is a rare and personal account that showcases the Chinese national psyche. Like all political movements of the past, the Cultural Revolution was not the first of its kind, nor quite possibly the last, yet Cheng Wang, now at home in both America and in China, maintains an optimism that is rare in confronting today's social polarization between the East and the West.
Instant bestseller!
Upcoming Titles for Spring 2023
Reviews, Excerpts
& Awards
Rolling in the Deep
by
Arthur Kevin Rein
Congratulations to Ooen Books author Mathieu Cailler as winner of the best new novel in the category of Romance at
the Los Angeles Book Festival competition!
Click cover to purchase your copy
The Devil in the Dust by John E. Espy
As miners in hard hats swing pick axes miles underground, the Devil comes calling disguised as a black dust. The dirty soot penetrates deep into the miners' lungs. The first sign is coughing up black phlegm. Then comes wheezing and pain in the chest, and the desperation of being unable to breathe. The Devil tightens its noose around the miners' throats as coal dust invades their chests like a marauding invader that has come to desecrate their lungs. Then, after years of suffering and torture, the Devil claims each victim.
Such is the fate of the coal miner. Not one, not two, but thousands of men suffer the fate of black lung disease. Lied to for a century by the coal companies, pursued by cowardly goons and unscrupulous doctors as the tragedy continues in the name of profit.
Three physicians dare to put their reputations, and at times their lives, on the line to expose the plight of the miners. Doctors Kitchen, McGarrity and McIntosh fight not only for miners' rights but also for their dignity. They try to discover ways of diagnosing black lung disease that can't be dismissed or shamed by the coal companies or their physician cronies. The Devil in the Dust is a story about courage, not only of the physicians confronting the coal companies and their stooges, but the courage of the coal miners to persevere in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
Congratulations to OB author Milana Marsenich as a Sarton's Womens Book Award finalist for her novel, The Swan Keeper!
Featured Title 2022
Featured Title 2022
Uncle Joe's Muse by Micah Thorp
A down-and-out band, a girl searching for her father, and Jerry’s guitar.
The members of Uncle Joe’s Band have spent years playing any venue that will pay for their unintelligible metal band performances while their rock and roll lifestyle has left them with bad livers, multiple divorces, and living in a squalid house in Vallejo, California.
Then one morning everything changes when an assertive twelve-year-old girl named Allison appears on their front porch and announces that she has been sent to stay with her father for the summer.
Meanwhile, years ago, the band’s namesake and inspiration, Uncle Joe, takes a long strange trip as a vagabond hippie through the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s that includes brushes with Ken Kesey’s bus, Watergate, the Pet Rock, Iran Contra, and Jerry Garcia.
Inspired by their experience with Allison and their budding paternal instincts, recollections of Uncle Joe, and a well-played Stratocaster with the initials “JG”, the members of Uncle Joe’s Band begin to play a new tune in a major key.
2018
Nautilus Award Winner!
Congratulations to OB author Anne Marie Ruff, winner of the 2018 Nautilus Award for fiction.
Congratulations to OB author
Cheng Wang!
Finalist in Best Book Awards Multicultural nonfiction
Cheng Wang, now at home in both America and in China, maintains an optimism in confronting today's social polarization between the East and the West.
The untold story of the Angel of Santa Fe and the Gettysburg of the West.
Culled from hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with Bar Jonah, dozens of others who either knew or were involved with him, Montana State investigators and prosecutors, and Zach Ramsay’s mother, Espy retells Bar Jonah’s entire life—from the time before he was conceived to after his death—and those who were harmed by him in unparalleled detail and scope.
Rolling in the Deep by Arthur Kevin Rein
Seventeen-year-old Sam Robel knows about loss. After the death of his older brother, his family bought Noquebay Resort in Northern Wisconsin to escape their grief.
Sam's friends Max and Diane also know about loss. Max's mother died long ago and his father's mysterious wealth and trophy wife are the talk of Walnut Creek; and six years ago, Diane's sister Jean disappeared without a trace.
One day while fishing with Max, Sam's line snags something from the bottom of Red Wolf Lake, and the discovery sets off a series of events that not only involves the three teenagers but also their friends and families, the sheriff's department, the other citizens of Walnut Creek, and, last but not least, a ruthlessly powerful small-town family, the Manticores, who seem intent on taking Noquebay Resort from Sam's family, no matter what the cost.
How far will Sam and his friends go to discover what secrets lay at the bottom of the lake?
Witchy Illusions by Stephen Spotte
She's a comely, kick-ass witch
who won't be put to the stake easily!
Witchy Illusions recounts the trial of Mademoiselle Ambrosine, a girl of fifteen accused of witchcraft in France in autumn 1515. Her lawyer is Barthélemy de Chassenée, a historical figure who became famous when in 1508 he defended the rats accused of eating the people’s grain stored at Autun’s granary and growing in nearby fields of the département of Saône-et-Loire.
During Mademoiselle Ambrosine's trial, justice plays out erratically, and nothing is ever clear. The proceeding turns increasingly opaque and the issues become more convoluted and muddled by legal precedent. Arguments about God’s will, mankind’s place in nature, and whether demons defecate and have erections ob-
scure focus on the central issue of the defendant's practice of witchcraft. These and similar metaphysical issues puzzle and invigorate everyone, the court and spectators alike, and it becomes evident that Institoris might have met his match in Mademoiselle Ambrosine. She's a comely, kick-ass witch who won't be put to the stake easily!
Winner Next Generation Indie Book
Awards
Open Books author
signed copies of his novels,
and its follow-up,
at Vassar College Bookstore
in New York.
Author Iris Yang Is Back In The Cockpit After Two-Year Grounding
Due To Covid-19!
Iris Yang recently spoke to the Men's Breakfast Club in Sedona, Arizona. Always visible at public presentations, this was Iris's first appearance since the onset of Covid-19 in 2020.
Meet Open Books Authors
Review: The Sugar Maple Grove: A Powerful Saga Of Confrontation, Uprising, And Change by John E. Espy, reviewed by Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer at Midwest Book Review.
Arthur Kevin Rein grew up on a resort (with five siblings and four cousins) in Northern
Wisconsin. Since then, he has graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh, obtained
a medical degree from the Medical
College of Wisconsin, and practiced Internal Medicine for forty years. He has published short stories and non-fiction works in numerous publications. Rolling in the Deep is his first novel.
Open Books will publishArthur's debut novel, Rolling in the Deep, in July 2022.
Everyone Here Is From Somewhere Else by Jeff Wallach
Mysteries—and comedy—abound in this stand-alone novel that also continues the stories of Phillip and Spencer Elliot first explored in the novel Mr. Wizard. The middle-aged brothers undertake a quest inspired by their dead mother to discover "wonderful things" – the phrase used by archaeologist Howard Carter in
describing his first look into King Tut's tomb.
Jenny Elliot, the boys' mother, was a budding Egyptologist as a girl, and the brothers consider themes of permanence, change, and legacy as they follow a trail to find their true place in the world—place being key as the brothers consider whether where you live is as crucial to who you are as such other obvious factors as DNA and upbringing.
The action takes place in the 1950s – 1970s in New York as well as in present day New York, Ireland and Oregon, exploring the inner lives of characters—past and present—and concluding with events and connections that are as surprising as they are inevitable.
Order Now!
Featured title for 2023
Beautiful Ghost
Milana Marsenich
During the fall of 1918, the influenza pandemic crosses the nation and reaches the mining town of Butte, Montana.
Marika Jovich, who wants to go to school to become a physician, works menial tasks for Dr. Fletcher. She feels useless as she tries to save friends and neighbors from the ravages of the flu. In the midst of the pandemic, she watches the town shut down, young and old perish, and her medical dreams all but evaporate.
Kaly Monroe used to be a half-good woman of the night. She left that life to raise her daughter, Annie, and live and work with her long-lost mother, Tara McClane. Kaly waits for her husband, Tommy, to return from the war. Word from the east is that soldiers are dying of influenza and she prays that Tommy is not one of them.
When an out-of-town woman named Amelia suddenly dies in Dr. Fletcher's office, both women try to learn more about the mysterious woman and the circumstances regarding her death. Is she another casualty of the pandemic, or the victim of manmade foul play? Who is this stranger, and is her demise a portent of the fate that awaits the residents of Butte?
FA Confidential
Riko Radojcic
Big things often have small beginnings.
As National Security Adviser to the President of the United States, Jane Stewart shepherds an act through congress to subsidize manufacturing of silicon chips on American soil.
Argon Zhi, an executive at one of the world’s best semiconductor foundries, accepts the responsibility to craft a plan for ensuring the competitiveness of Taiwan's technology companies and ensure the continued independence of his country.
Cedric Dyson's job as a Failure Analysis engineer is to figure out why some chips do not work the way they are supposed to. When he notices a pattern among the failing chips sent to his FA lab, he uncovers a shocking truth.
Jane, Argon and Cedric, each operating within their professional domains, make a series of decisions that lead to an international blame game which could escalate into an open conflict between the world’s powers.
Will a new silicon chip factory subsidized by the US government, an act of sabotage compromising a multi-billion dollar fab, and a Failure Analysis expert on the case lead the world to a brink of WWIII?
Click image to enlarge
OB author Riko Radojcic recently appeared at Warwick's in La Jolla, CA to discuss his high tech thrillers Starup and FA Confidential
Featured title for 2023
OB author Arthur Kevin Rein recently met readers at Briars & Brambles in Crivitz, Wisconsin.
Open Books Welcomes New Authors
Steve Oskie’s plays have been produced in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. He is the author of Mean Thoughts, a semi-finalist for the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, and is the ghostwriter of Jerry Blavat’s autobiography, You Only Rock Once, which has been published in hardcover, paperback, and audio book editions. Steve’s short fiction has appeared in Textures, Pierien Spring, and other literary journals.
Oskie’s screenplay, “Dead Meat,” was a finalist in a screenplay competition at the Terror Film Festival, and his additional screenwriting efforts include an adaptation of “Mean Thoughts,” a pair of short films that appeared in a screening series in Philadelphia, and a three-part teleplay based on the life of Jerry Blavat.
On a personal note, Oskie dropped out of college to “become a writer,” worked a series of odd jobs, and labored in obscurity like George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London. Whether his decisions were prudent or not, there’s nothing he can do about them now.
Open Books will publish Steve's latest novel, Glassman, in spring of 2023.
Steve Oskie
An ardent traveler, Jayne has visited many areas of France and the Francophone world over the years.
15% Holiday Discount on Bestselling Copper Sky & recently published sequel, Beautiful Ghost!
Click the image for a
Robert Klose teaches at the University of Maine and is the single father of sons adopted from Russia and Ukraine. He is a regular contributor of essays to The Christian Science Monitor. His work has also appeared in Newsweek, The Boston Globe, and various literary magazines. His books include the memoirs, Adopting Alyosha — A Single Man Finds a Son in Russia and Adopting Anton — A Single Man Seeks a Son in Ukraine; the essay collections Small Worlds — Adopted Sons, Pet Piranhas and Other Mortal Concerns and The Three-Legged Woman & Other Excursions in Teaching; and the novels, Long Live Grover Cleveland, which won a 2016 Ben Franklin Literary Award and a USA BookNews Award, and Life on Mars, which was a Finalist for a 2019 Best Book Award sponsored by American Book Fest and was also a Finalist in the International Book Awards and American Fiction Awards.
He is also a four-time winner of a Maine Press Association award for Opinion writing.
Open Books will publish Robert's latest novel, Trigger Warning, in August of 2023.
has published 19 books, including three volumes of fiction, a memoir, and a work of cultural theory.
He is a Certified Wildlife Biologist of The Wildlife Society and also holds a U.S. Merchant Marine officer's license.
Open Books titles include: The Singing Bones, Invisible: Stories, In An Empty Room, Conversations with a Cat and Witchy Illusions.
Dr. Spotte now lives and writes from his home in Longboat Key, Florida.
Pamela Gwyn Kripke
Robert Klose
Pamela Gwyn Kripke is a journalist and author whose stories have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Huffington Post, Slate, Salon, Medium, New York Magazine, Parenting, Elle, D Magazine, Creators Syndicate, Gannett Newspapers and McClatchy. Her short fiction and creative nonfiction have been published or are forthcoming in Folio, The Concrete Desert Review, The Barcelona Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Book of Matches, The MacGuffin, Meet Me At 19th, The Woven Tale Press, Underwired, Doubleback Review and Round Table Literary Journal.
Her novel, At the Seams, received the Arch Street Press First Chapter Award and was excerpted in Embark and West Trade Review.
Pamela holds an AB in English from Brown University and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University and was selected to attend the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop for Summer 2022. She began her career as a television reporter in Biloxi, Mississippi, covering shrimp fishing and the Dixie mafia, among other topics. Pamela has taught journalism at DePaul University and Columbia College in Chicago and has held various magazine editorships in New York and Dallas. Born in Manhattan, she grew up in the city’s northern suburbs and currently lives outside Philadelphia. She has two daughters and one rescued terrier
Open Books will publish At the Seams in spring of 2023.
David Mould is a teacher, historian and writer who loves to travel places most tourists
don’t visit. He worked as a newspaper and TV journalist in the north of England before moving to the United States in 1978 for post-graduate study at the University of Kansas. After working as a public radio producer, he joined the faculty at Ohio University, and later earned his Ph.D. in American Studies. He has written for the Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, Times Higher Education, Transitions Online, Columbus Dispatch, History Today, AmericanHeritage.com, History News Network, The Montreal Review, Global Beat Syndicate and other print and online media.
Featured Title 2018
Glassman
Steve Oskie
Mark Glassman does a surprisingly good job of feigning confidence, fooling everyone but himself.
Mark Glassman is twenty-five in 1979. Self-taught after dropping out of college, he devises a course of study that encompasses such varied works as The Sorrows of Young Werther, The Universal Baseball Association, and Portnoy's Complaint. But the amount of alcohol he consumes, the vast quantities of pot he smokes, and the other drugs he experiments with compromise the seriousness of this endeavor.
When Glassman falls in love with Teresa Devlin, he realizes that he is terrified of her sexually, and that his only recourse is to resume his pursuit of Sarah Sloane, one of his housemates in a shared living arrangement. Soon Glassman arrives at the neat psychological ploy of playing the two women off one another.
Eventually, Glassman packs his bags for Long Beach Island, where he spends the winter feeling sorry for himself. Will he ever fully recover from acting out to an extraordinary degree? Is happiness even possible for a person such as himself?
Trigger Warning
Robert Klose
Within these halls of learning, one must proceed with caution.
Happily ensconced as a tenured Professor of Biology at the small Skowhegan College in the wilds of Maine, Tymoteusz Tarnaszewski—who goes by the moniker "T"—suddenly finds himself in unknown territory when an incident in a colleague's classroom motivates the college administration to issue a blanket policy requiring the installation of "trigger warnings" in all syllabi.
T, believing that this would constrain his teaching, refuses to comply, even after one of his own students lodges a complaint about something T said during the course of a genetics lecture. The administration's judgment is swift: T will be terminated at semester's end for insubordination.
What recourse, if any, does T have to save his position? And what will he do when he learns the higher-ups knew, early on, that the student who lodged the complaint against him is actually a threat to the school?
Featured title for 2023
Uncle Joe's Senpai
Micah Thorp
The band is back!
Instead of playing in rundown bars, Uncle Joe’s Band now sell out concert halls.
Prior to a tour in Japan, a letter arrives claiming one of the band members, Ian, is the father of an unnamed young woman, who coincidentally is the member of another band, Stygian Teal. In the hopes of identifying Ian’s daughter, Uncle Joe’s Band attends a Stygian Teal concert. Much to their surprise, they find not one, but four Stygian Teal band members, any of which could be Ian’s daughter.
Meanwhile, as the band’s namesake Uncle Joe, an aged deadhead, makes his way across North America during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, another Uncle Jo, Joji Kinsara, makes his way across the Japanese archipelago. Everywhere he goes, Joji leaves large painted haiku poems, which become noted works of art. In his travels Joji visits the Nagano Winter Olympics, starts an environmental revitalization of Mt. Fuji, and helps ensure that a young Masako Owada becomes a future empress.
As they journey through Japan, Uncle Joe’s Band attempts to discern which young woman is Ian’s daughter, how to deal with newfound fame, and what it takes to formulate a family.
"Arthur Kevin Rein’s tension-filled YA tale revolves around a teen-aged boy dealing with personal challenges and a crime mystery. Rife with smart, inquisitive, original characters who are allowed to act like both real kids and superheroes at the same time, the story rollercoasters through plot twists, leaving readers breathless. Teens and adults with a love for adventure will devour this far-from-simple mystery and its PG-style danger, seduction and intrigue."
Also by Milanna Marsenich
Goldfinch in the Thistle
Khristy Reibel
Is love strong enough to save a kingdom and stop history from repeating itself?
Goldfinch in the Thistle follows the lifelong love story of James V, King of Scotland, and his mistress, Maggie Erskine.
Marriage is impossible, even after Maggie gives birth to a royal son. Margaret Tudor, the king’s mother, longs to bring her son and her brother Henry VIII into an alliance with a marriage to an English noble or princess and fulfill her promise to her father to join Scotland and England together. Meanwhile the King’s secretary, Thomas Erskine, who has a salacious secret, encourages a royal French marriage. Both James and Maggie know that a royal marriage—something which Maggie cannot provide—will bring much needed money to build Scotland and keep the King’s uncle from subsuming it under England’s cloak.
But when the new Queen of Scots finally arrives at Stirling Castle, what will it mean for Maggie and her son?
Set in sixteenth century Scotland against the background of the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance in northern Europe, and the reign of Henry VIII, Goldfinch in the Thistle is a story of unfulfilled promises, loyalties, and shifting perspectives.
Just Published
Goldfinch in the Thistle by Khriaty Reibel
Is love strong enough to save a kingdom and stop history from repeating itself?
Goldfinch in the Thistle follows the lifelong love story of James V, King of Scotland, and his mistress, Maggie Erskine.
Marriage is impossible, even after Maggie gives birth to a royal son. Margaret Tudor, the king’s mother, longs to bring her son and her brother Henry VIII into an alliance with a marriage to an English noble or princess and fulfill her promise to her father to join Scotland and England together. Meanwhile the King’s secretary, Thomas Erskine, who has a salacious secret, encourages a royal French marriage. Both James and Maggie know that a royal marriage—something which Maggie cannot provide—will bring much needed money to build Scotland and keep the King’s uncle from subsuming it under England’s cloak.
But when the new Queen of Scots finally arrives at Stirling Castle, what will it mean for Maggie and her son?
Set in sixteenth century Scotland against the background of the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance in northern Europe, and the reign of Henry VIII, Goldfinch in the Thistle is a story of unfulfilled promises, loyalties, and shifting perspectives.
