Rose Girl: A tale of resilience and Rumi

From Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers author Holly Payne, Rose Girl: A Tale of Resilience & Rumi is a medieval thriller that unravels the mystery surrounding an orphaned girl saint in the 13th century. Named after the flowering rosa damascena, the rose girl grows up in a monastery under a tyrannical monk but flees his wrath and soon develops a mysterious gift' turning roses into rose oil and is exploited as a saint for performing miracles. Determined to unburden herself of her servitude, the rose girl escapes to medieval Turkey and undergoes a powerful transformation when she meets the great mystic Rumi and discovers the secret of her birth. The rose girl is a potent reminder of our capacity to turn our greatest pain into love.

Holly Lynn Payne is an award-winning internationally published novelist of four books which have been published in eleven countries. Her debut novel, The Virgin's Knot, was named a Discover Great New Writers Book from Barnes & Noble. Her third novel, Kingdom of Simplicity, based on a true story of forgiveness, won a First Place Benjamin Franklin Award and Grand Prize for Writers Digest. She is the host and producer of the Page One Podcast and interviews the world's master storytellers on the stories and struggles behind the first sentence, first paragraph and first page of their books. Notable guests include bestselling authors Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), Dean Koontz, JT Ellison, Tess Gerritsen, Robert Dugoni, Alka Joshi and Yasmin Darznik among others. She is the former CEO and founder of Booxby, a startup backed by a grant from the National Science Foundation that built a patented AI technology to aid book discovery for authors. She founded Skywriter Books, an award-winning small press, publishing consultancy and writing coaching service which she continues to serve. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter and has volunteered as a producer for Litquake, the West Coast's largest literary festival. She holds a BA with honors from University of Richmond, where she received a distinguished Alumni Award, an MFA from USC, and MIM from the Academy of Intuition Medicine, bringing her healing gifts to her writing coaching clients. A native of Amish County, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family and dogs. She has written for Huffington Post, Release Print Magazine, University of Richmond Alumni Magazine, MOCA+ magazine and Medium. You can learn more about her at hollylynnpayne.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter (X) @hollylynnpayne.com