Monkfish and author will continue to build on our ongoing campaign for the Maeve Chronicles by touring, and pursuing reviews, interviews and targeted events. Magdalen Rising (originally published as Daughter of the Shining Isles) is the prequel to The Passion of MM. Advertising: We are running a three ad campaign in The New York Times Book Review. The first will run on Dec 3, 2006 pitching The Passion as a holiday book; the second on March 18 for Magdalen Rising, and The Passion paperback. That ad will also an event in NYC--an "Unorthodox Easter". The final ad will be for the last book in the trilogy, Bright, Dark Madonna. we will also be pursuing some niches including Irish, GLBT, Feminist,Celtic, Episocopal, Interfaith, Goddess, Pagan, Catholic.
Elizabeth Cunningham is the direct descendant of nine generations of Episcopal priests. When she was not in church or school, she read fairytales and fantasy novels or wandered in the enchanted wood of an overgrown, abandoned estate next door to the rectory. Her religious background, the magic of fairytales, and the numinous experience of nature continue to inform her work.
In Daughter of the Shining Isles, her first volume of "The Maeve Chronicles," Cunningham introduced the reader to an unusual sort of Mary Magdalen, a wild Celtic girl named Maeve who fell desperately in love with a young man she called Esus. After preventing Esus's sacrifice in a druidic ritual and sending him back to Israel, Maeve was exiled from her island home, captured by Romans, and sold into slavery. This second volume picks up the story at this point, following Maeve through her time of slavery and her journey with benefactor Joseph of Arimathea to Galilee, where she is reunited with her beloved Esus, now known as Jesus. Though intentional on Cunningham's part, anachronistic references to Las Vegas, coffee klatches, and high fives may leave some readers a bit disoriented. That quibble aside, Cunningham weaves Hebrew scripture, Celtic and Egyptian mythology, and early Christian legend into a nearly seamless whole, creating an unforgettable fifth gospel story in which the women most involved in Jesus's ministry are given far more representation than found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Recommended for public libraries where there is an interest in Celtic or early church mythologies. [For a more traditional portrait, see Angela Hunt's Magdalene, reviewed in the Christian Fiction column on p. 74; coming in August is Kathleen McGowan's The Expected One (Touchstone Fireside), the first of a trilogy of thrillers about Mary Magdalene.-Ed.]-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Municipal Libs., AK Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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