Magdalen Rising: The Beginning (The Maeve Chronicles) - Hardcover

Cunningham, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0976684322 ISBN 13: 9780976684329

Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing, 2007

Synopsis

“Smart and earthy . . . richly imaginative . . . the epitome of the storyteller’s art.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch (chosen as one of “The Year’s Best Books”)

“This amazing book could well become a classic of women’s literature.”—Booklist (chosen as one of the “Year’s Ten Best Fantasy Books”)

Young Magdalen and Jesus, brimming with youthful charm and arrogance, find each other and fall in love, forging a bond that is stronger than death. Their pleasure is overshadowed by a brilliant but unbalanced druid who knows a perilous secret about Maeve’s past. The prequel to The Passion of Mary Magdalen.

About this title

About the Author

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.

Reviews

*Starred Review* The prequel to The Passion of Mary Magdalen (2006) lets us in on how a redheaded Celtic lass wound up the literal bride of Christ, and whereas Passion was deeply based in the New Testament (and the sociology of Roman brothels), Magdalen Rising is rooted in Celtic lore. Mary, nee Maeve, was born to weather-witches on a magical, floating island somewhere in the Celtic lands. Raised with unconditional maternal love and with few restraints on body or soul, she grows to be a glorious creature, with plenty of the talents that her possibly divine mothers used for witchcraft. Yes, she has more than one mother, though it would be giving away the store to explain how. She also has a destiny that she encounters in a vision of a man in desert garb taking a leak--a trademark Cunningham touch, both intensely religious and frankly, even humorously, embodied. When she meets that man at druid school, their fated love begins to unfold. Is he Esus, doomed god of the Celts, or Jesus, doomed god of the Jews, or both? Is she goddess or woman or both? Cunningham plays with complex theological issues--the role of embodiment in salvation, the gender of divinity, the question of sacrifice--but she is preeminently a storyteller, and the reader engages those questions within a marvelous, romantic tale. Patricia Monaghan
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Edition details

• Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0976684322
• ISBN 13: 9780976684329
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416