We think of the 7^th century as the far, misty past, especially since so little of it was recorded. But what was it like for those living through it? There’s a funny twist I have to repeat in my brain to remember that my characters (Farewell, O Syria) would see their world and experiences as their own modernity. They would feel the changes around them with the same anxiety and wonder that we do. Granted, their technology usually transformed at the speed of a sloth.

But change did come. Although Greek fire was still a few decades in the future, the stirrup, originating in China, was beginning to show up in the Near East as the northern Turkic tribes drifted west and south. And shifting borders were increasing the flow of higher quality steel from India, supplying superior weapons to enhance lethality on the battlefield.

Sometimes people’s circumstances and environments changed quickly, usually due to the violence of the natural world (earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, plague); or invasion—whether by bandits marauding through a village, or armies expanding the territory and control of empires. Being dragged off from Antioch to Persia en-masse would be a pretty big change for the individuals involved.

But another aspect of this era also fascinates me.

In the 7^th century, Straight Street of Damascus had been walked by the Apostle Paul 600 years before.

My characters “exist” in a land already ancient.

The Dead Cities of Northern Syria: Scattered across the Limestone Massif west of Aleppo, the stone ruins of estates, churches, villages, and farm buildings can still be explored. Scholars used to think these were abandoned due to shifts in populations during and shortly after the Islamic conquest. Now this decline is thought to have taken place over a much longer time, likely beginning with the 6^th century plagues, the earthquakes, and the marches of vast Persian armies in the 6^th and early 7^th centuries. By the time my characters pass through, the reduction in population is well under way.

Dura-Europos: While shifting from Greek to Parthian to Roman control, Dura-Europos sat on the edge of the Euphrates River and the edge of civilizations for nearly six centuries. It was finally destroyed and abandoned in 256 AD by the Sasanians. Archaeological evidence indicates that the first recorded use of chemical warfare (sulfur and naphtha) took place during mining and countermining operations under the ramparts. The city also holds the ruins of the first confidently dated Christian assembly building: a private home architecturally altered to become a recognizable santuary complete with a baptistery and illustrative frescos displaying New Testament events, including an image believed to be the first known representation of Mary the mother of Jesus.

Also discovered during the 1930s archaeological dig: one of the earliest synagogues ever found, complete with Aramaic inscriptions (the local language of the Near East) and extensive murals including human imagery in fifty-eight biblical scenes.

By the 7^th century, Dura Europos would have been covered by sand drifts.

Coastal Syria (Lebanon), including the stretch between Beirut and Antioch where my main character treads, had been struck several times by earthquakes, at least one resulting in a significant tsunami and ensuing fires in the mid-500s. Even with Emperor Justinian’s efforts to recover and rebuild the region, this structural devastation would have been visible during the run of my story.

Palmyra: From the earliest mentions of a pre-Roman oasis settlement in 2000 BC, to Queen Zenobia’s 3^rd-century AD campaigns against the Roman colonizers, Palmyra had served as a desert waystation for caravans and armies. By 636 AD, when one of my characters travels through, it is contracting toward the original village of Tadmur whence it began. Wind and war had diminished its earlier glory. While writing my story, ISIS added to its ruin.

My characters walk in a world already ancient, surrounded by evidence of prior empires, societies come and gone—hundreds, even thousands of years before. Some of this history would be known to the educated. My characters would likely know the tales of Homer, the histories of Herodotus, the ecclesiastical records of Eusebius, and certainly both Old and New Testaments. The fact that these were transmitted forward in time confirms humanity’s fascination with what has gone before.

And as our own fascination continues, whether in fictitious extrapolation, speculation, epic, myth, or faulty and biased attempts at presenting the “facts”, we still crave the stories—for the adventure, the imagination, and the potential understanding they bring.

Now, go read something :) And have a fantastic weekend!

Lausanne

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The eBook pre-order for Farewell, O Syria is now available on Amazon. Release date is October 1st. Ebooks will be exclusive to Amazon for a while, but paperbacks and hardbacks will be available in a variety of stores. I’ll post that information once they go live.

If you’d like to pre-order, here’s the link:

Pre-order Farewell, O Syria

While we’re headed to a big family gathering in South Carolina, I thought I’d alert you to another resource for Indie published writing. Some months ago the Alliance of Independent Authors set up their own bookstore. There’s already well over 7000 books listed and growing fast. You can search the site by genre, including non-fiction.

Of course, I took a quick scroll through the historical fiction listings and immediately saw at least a dozen of interest to my picky self.

Each title brings you to a detailed description page for that book. The buy link will take you to a retail page. Many go directly to Amazon or bookshop.org. Some use universal book links and take you to books2read.com or the like where all the retail options are available.

Pretty nifty. Very impressive.

Here’s a July posting from ALLi’s own Substack explaining the benefits and recommendations for indie authors who would like to be included in their lisings.

Alliance Independent Authors

Five Months Running ALLi's Indie Author Bookstore

For the past five months I’ve been ALLi’s Bookstore Lead, which mostly means I look through the Indie Author Bookstore almost every day. It’s a curated, indie-only space, over 6,000 books now and climbing, where every single title was written and self-published by an indie author. No algorithm, no traditional publishers, just us…

Read more

2 months ago · 35 likes · 11 comments · Alliance Independent Authors

Were you aware of this new resource? Have a look. I bet you can find some stories set off the beaten path—books that would be buried by the millions on Amazon. Let me know what you think!

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When I return from SC, writing Book II jumps from “on hold” to priority. For the last eight months my life has been consumed by moving: packing the house, unpacking at the temp location, packing that up, moving it all to the new home. All but the pictures and mirrors are now unpacked. Whew. Our livingroom has a few places to sit. All other rooms are at least functioning, including my “new” garage studio. Everything else can happen when I get to it.

I’ve recently found the braincells to get reading again, so I’ll have some books to report on soon.

The one thing I managed to do during this big shuffle—preparing Farewell, O Syria for publication. Covers, interiors, Wordpress site revamps…

The KDP paperback is here and approved:

Okay, yeah. Pretty strange to hold this thing in my hand. I think it hasn’t hit me yet. Also, it’s not really as strange as walking on to a stage set that started in my brain. I guess that’s a matter of scale. Maybe I’m used to this manifestation of my imagination. But none of those ever took so much time, research, pre-dawn scribbles, grappling with hard things. I think this will finally become real once people completely unknown/unconnected to me read it. Then it will be out of my control once and for all.

Meanwhile, I’ve order the BookVault hardback proof. Can’t wait to hold that one…

Until then, y’all take care of yourselves.

~ Lausanne

And there you have it! (Pinch me! It’s really happening!)

The Amazon eBook pre-order site is here.

The back of book blurb reads as follows:

In 635 AD, as Khalid ibn al-Walid’s Saracens besiege Damascus, the ancient city is consumed by internal strife. Alexander’s heroes crumble. He longs to join the Roman army, but that legendary force is soon in retreat, leaving the Syrians to the rule of barbarians.

Allegiances shift. Options recede. Alex and his best friend must reconstruct their loyalties and ambitions as the Caliphate rises from the Arabian sands, threatening the ancient Roman and Persian kingdoms. When his sister is wrenched from her home, Alex will defy his bishop and three armies to find her. But in a world where empires die and prophets lament, will he also dare to defy God?

Farewell, O Syria plunges the reader into the consequences of the Byzantine-Persian wars and the explosive rise of the Saracens. This epic drama unfolds at the hinge point of history—a period largely neglected by the Western canon, yet one whose seismic conflicts still shape the modern world. This is an unflinching story of faith and survival in a time when the world faced the onslaught of a new era.

The ebook is up for pre-order with a publishing date of October 1st.

I’m waiting on proof prints from KDP and BookVault. Depending on how those look, I may bring the publishing date forward into September. (Amazon does not take kindly to missed pre-order dates, so I’m allowing time for format revisions.)

The ebook will be offered in Amazon’s subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, for the first 90 days, making it exclusive to Amazon during that time. The paperback and hardback versions will be available on Amazon and other places. (I plan to set up a BookShop.org listing at least). So, stay tuned for all of that :)

Pre-orders help the algo find me and tell it to pay attention, giving an extra boost to the book’s future visibility. So if you prefer eBooks, you could tell Amazon to drop it in your basket now and have it as soon as it releases. But if you want to hold this doorstopper as paper and ink, hold steady…

Either way, you’re all awesome for being here!

Lausanne

Greetings Dear Readers!

And especially greetings to those new subscribers who’ve not yet heard from me! Yes, we’re here for historical fiction. Yes, I’m soon to publish my new novel, Farewell, O Syria!

However:

Pro tip - Don’t try to move across state lines with household, studio, offices, beekeeper’s workshop, and transfer professional licenses and two businesses while trying to publish your first book.

It will make you eat chocolate.

Because that’s not enough fun, we left FL at 3am, James driving a large U-Haul pulling a large trailer, myself driving the old Tundra pulling a small trailer, the two cats with me, for the 7-hour trip north. We needed to make our destination in time for a 1pm closing. Got there to discover the sellers still fully occupied the property!

No, they weren’t bad guys trying to be squatters. They and their 4 dogs had been ghosted by their movers.

In the end, neighbors arrived with farming trailers, their realtor spent 3-4 days loading and driving U-hauls, we began moving into the house as rooms were emptied. Absolute chaos, but we got to meet good people and we all survived. Ten days later, we finally had full access to the house, garage, attic, and storage building, waving bye-bye to the owners we’d gotten to know.

I’m now only knee-deep in boxes. That’s big progress.

And so, with this setback, I’ve had to hit the pause on the publishing project because as a newbie, I need better focus for this first time around. But we’re nearly at the stage of uploading text and covers to Print on Demand services and ordering proofs. Gasp!

I think a mid-September release might be doable, assuming there are no big problems with the print proofs.

Meanwhile, I promise a cover reveal the next time I come up for air.

I hope everyone is making the best of the high summer or deep winter phase of this year! Let me know what’s going on with you!

Blessings,

Lausanne

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The travel log and commentary, From the Holy Mountain, was published in 1997 (UK) from notes made during William Dalrymple’s 1994 journey through modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt. His purpose was to follow the decades-long path of John Moschos and fellow monk Sophronius taken in the late sixth to early seventh centuries.

That Late Antique tale is told in Moschos’s extant work, The Spiritual Meadow, which I read many years ago at the beginning of my research for Farewell, O Syria. Its anecdotes, hagiographies, and sayings of the Desert Fathers provide a rare look at life and worldview from the region and narrate the monks’ firsthand experience of the Persian invasion of Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt just before the Islamic Conquest.

Moschos’s travel partner, Sophronius, gets several mentions in my novel as his long life overlapped not only the Persian conquest but also the eventual surrender of Jerusalem to the Arabs in AD 637, by which time he was the patriarch of the Holy City.

To Dalrymple’s 1990s observations, we can now add the lens of thirty additional years. Things had changed not only between Moschos’s and Dalrymple’s nearly 1400-year gap, but again between Dalrymple’s journey and today.

Now, a few thoughts on the book’s patchwork of content:

I found the first five of six parts mostly dispiriting and sometimes maddening, reminded of the horrors of the 20^th century in the region: the march of Armenians into the desert, the expulsions of Greeks from the lands they’d inhabited for over 3,000 years, the mass emigrations of Christians from the Levant, and the constant upheaval of the ancient realm of the Church. Add the challenges of the Kurds, the Yezidis, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran…on it goes. This is the familiar and recent layer Dalrymple must navigate in order to search out the scattered remnants of Moschos’s world—fortified monasteries occupied by the last aging monks of so many centuries.

Mile by mile, we accompany Dalrymple on risky drives through Anatolia—where the Turkish government and the Kurdish PKK rebels destroy fields and orchards to deny each other power in the region—past pockmarked villages and roadblocks, on clandestine visits to threatened and nearly abandoned churches, and then shake our heads at his relief in arriving safely across the border into Syria. Imagine Syria—the refuge.

In Northern Syria we visit the land of the stylites, where each outdid the other in extreme exposure and deprivation, where vast complexes grew around their pillared perches, now rubble like ancient and mysterious standing stones, a landscape trekked by my main character in AD 636.

Farther south, after time spent in Beirut and Baalbek—also locations in my story—Dalrymple ventures to the Monastery of Mar Saba, north of the Dead Sea, where the grandson of one of my historical characters wrote his theological works. St. John of Damascus (AD 675–749–ish) retired there after serving the new Islamic rulers. His writings included the Fount of Knowledge and others that have become foundational to the Church both East and West.

In many ways, Dalrymple’s scratching below the sandy surface of present-day debris is a reminder of how shallow we Westerners are in our comprehension of history. One laugh-out-loud passage from a site overlooking the Valley of Kedron reads as follows:

As we sank deeper underground, masonry gave way to the living rock of a cave wall, and we entered a wide, echoing underground cavern. A pair of recesses at the far side of the cave were illuminated by the dim, flickering light of a cluster of lamps placed in front of two gilt icons, each depicting a heavily bearded Byzantine saint. Another group of lamps flickered at the bottom of the stairs, under an ancient icon of the Magi. To one side of it stood a huge pile of skulls.

‘This was the cave where the three wise men hid from King Herod,’ whispered the nun, holding the storm lantern aloft. ‘St Theodosius saw the cave in a vision and founded his monastery in this place to honour the Magi.’

‘And the skulls?’

‘They belong to the monks that were slaughtered by the Persians when they burned the abbey.’

‘When did that happen?’

‘Not so long ago,’ she said. ‘Around 614 A.D.’1

After an extended visit in and around Jerusalem and over to Alexandria, we reach the southernmost boundary of the Byzantine Empire: the Monastery of St. Antony, deep in the desert three hundred miles southeast of Cairo. Here Dalrymple finally slows long enough to provide a more considered experience than the mad rush of the previous chapters. Here he finds a lively community of monks, including young, enthusiastic novices rather than the dismal, dying days of his prior stops along the way. It is fascinating that this desert refuge, where monasticism began, seems the rare place in the East where Dalrymple found it still thriving.

Overall, the text is engaging, especially to my keen interest in the history of these same communities, but less probing than I’d hoped. Dalrymple certainly has many conversations discussing how his interviewees saw themselves in their immediate contexts and that of their people’s ancient historical timelines—how they managed to persevere in spite of the unrelenting pressures, what would become of them once the last elderly holdout passed on—but with few exceptions, he did not linger any one place or with any individual long enough to examine these questions in depth.

Having finished Farewell, O Syria, where I sought to uncover the Christian community’s understanding and navigation of the Islamic Conquest as it unfolded, I am now moving forward in time to the next story, hoping to explore how the conquered population understood and responded to the consequences, the gradual change of status, and their relationships to each other and their new rulers. As such, I had hoped to come away from Dalrymple’s work with a clearer picture of the worldview that has either sustained or failed them. However, From the Holy Mountain is more of an informational, empathetic reportage, told with witty relief, and moments of the absurd and the wonderful. It includes an extensive bibliography, an index, and black-and-white images, which contribute to the sense of loss the book portrays.

There are, however, flickers of hope. While composing this article, the following appeared in my inbox:

Since we’ve moved west, deeper into north-central Florida, we’re only 90 minutes from a favorite Old Florida location. On a recent Sunday afternoon, enjoying the cool behind a cold front, we jumped in the car and headed to Wakulla Springs, a first magnitude spring—one of the world’s deepest and with an extensive cave system. (And, no. You’re not getting me to dive in there!)

Several early Tarzan films and underwater scenes from the 1977 disaster movie, Airport 77, (not the 1980 comedy Airplane!) were filmed in the crystal-clear waters.

But for many of us, its real claim to fame is the 1950s classic, The Creature of the Black Lagoon—a movie filmed before my time, but a favorite and frequent Creature Feature TV broadcast during my 1970s childhood.

Unfortunately, glass-bottom boat tours have been discontinued as the water is now too murky to see much through the tannin and algae. The solid-bottom boats are still a wonderful opportunity to spot alligators, other bank-side critters, and manatees during the winter months.

On our recent visit, the water looked very clear, at least in the shallows from my dockside view.

But none of this explains my compulsion to go there. What brings me back is the hotel generally:

And lobby’s ceiling makes me squeal:

Edward Ball, a poor-born financier whose first big break was his sister’s marriage to Alfred I. du Pont, followed the prestigious couple to Florida and on du Pont’s death managed his sister’s vast assets, including Florida land and railways. In 1937, he purchased the land surrounding Wakulla Springs and constructed the Lodge as a guest house, employing local craftsmen to build his retreat.1

This also feeds my fascination: What of these local craftsmen? Who were they? The county’s population in the 1930s was only around 5,400 and largely impoverished. Who painted this ceiling? My imagination wants to hear their story.

The other thrill for me is that the structure retains so much of its original design and materials. It is not a huge building—not in league with the grand Flagler hotels in St. Augustine. It is much more modest, with 27 guestrooms, a common room, restaurant, and enclosed veranda overlooking the lawn down to the swimming hole of the spring.

We spent one night there a few years ago just to inhabit a place of history that is neither overly renovated nor roped off. It allows the imagination some freedom not found in more polished relics.

I would love to spend a month there drafting a story set in Old Florida…

Have you ever been to Wakulla Springs? Or do you have a similar retreat where you can so easily step back in time without feeling like you’re in Disney World?

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News:

Farewell, O Syria:

• Cover design is complete

• Interior design under way

Personal:

• Prior home sale: closed.

• New home: under contract and we’re past the main inspection phase. Have a couple of other inspections to complete.

Sedikit demi sedikit, lama lama jadi bukit. (Little by little, over time becomes a mountain.)

Take courage!

~ Lausanne

While I chip away at rebuilding my old WordPress web presence and wait for the formatters to return the interior of Farewell, O Syria, I have a couple of things to share with you.

Thinking about the Historical Novel Society’s July digital conference (see below), I had a minor “duh” moment. I assume most writers of HistFic are well aware of the HNS, but are readers of historical fiction using their extensive, I mean MASSIVE, online collection of reviews to find their next read?

If you are a fan of the genre, I invite you to check this out:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/

From within this Reviews section, you can search by genre, author, period, century, publisher, and Historical Novel Review (quarterly print! magazine) volumes back over 25 years. This is my favorite function. I can find stories on the fringes of the publishing industry’s often narrow focus.

If you want something from off the beaten path, try this category:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/period/ancient-world-other/

The site also has an articles archive, searchable by many categories. Here you can find interviews of your favorite authors, feature reviews, book announcements, craft discussions, and more:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/articles/

Conferences:

For writers of historical fiction, you might be aware that the Historical Novel Society has a Day Camp (a one day virtual conference) coming up fast on June 13^th. (You do not need to be a member).

https://hns-conference.com/2026/03/16/day-camp-uniquely-historical-fiction/

And:

I only heard about the History Through Fiction Conference after the fact, but the sessions were recorded and are available for $79.00. I haven’t dug in yet, but there’s lots of interesting talks for Historical Fiction writers. From what I can tell, many of the topics sound fresh.

Here’s a page listing the conference talks:

https://www.historythroughfiction.com/recorded-sessions

And where to purchase the replays:

https://www.historythroughfiction.com/htf-conference-welcome

How do you decide what to read next? Do you search online? For specific times/places? Do you hear about books from friends? How does a title make its way into your conscious decision-making process? Multiple recommendations? or bursts of curiosity?

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Okay, that’s all from me today. I think I’ll go watch this stuff they call rain here in super-parched North Florida.

Enjoy your weekend!

Lausanne

The shortlist for the most prestigious historical fiction award is here! So I took some time to look at the five offerings. I’m less surprised that none of them interest me than appalled at the lack of effort some of the publishers put into the most basic marketing tactics. It may be that some of these just don’t appeal to us masses, but decent metadata and a little attention might result in a couple more sales for the writers.

The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Knopf, April 2025), 496 pages. In 1483, a young boy learns he is the last Plantagenet and heir to the throne. Good blurb. Good use of Amazon page generally. Extensive editorial reviews. The one stars mostly complain about archaic language style and too many pages detailing the 13-year-old boy’s raging sex drive, but sales are going well: 4.1 stars w/939 reviews. Third-person present tense.

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury, January 2026), 416 pages. From the official blurb on the page, you’ll have no idea what this book is about. “From the multi-award-winning author - a beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel telling the story of a young girl’s battle for survival and search for the truth in occupied Vienna.” Only by scanning the (2) reviews did I piece together something to do with early research into autism and resulting acts of euthanasia. A more enlightening blurb might draw more readers. Per Google, this is set in 1938. 4.2 stars w/24 ratings, 2 written reviews (one 5-star, one 1-star, extensive critique). No Editorial Reviews. First-person present tense.

Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Biblioasis, November 2025), 174 pages. 1857: murder, mystery, madness. Filed as Historical Thriller. Shortlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize, longlisted for the 2025 Highland Book Prize, A Globe 100 Best Book of 2025. Good blurb. No use of Amazon’s A+ options. A lengthy list of editorial reviews full of all the expected praise for a prize-winning book. … and yet, 3.9 stars w/28 ratings. No written reviews. First-person past tense.

Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert (Virago, March 2025), 464 pages. 1945 post-WWII refugee camp. Secrets. Sufficient blurb, but no A+ material, no Amazon categories listed. (I didn’t know that was possible.) By a prior Booker Prize-shortlisted author. 4.1 stars w/73 rankings, only one written review. NO Preview!?!

EDIT: Thank you Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past for pointing out that Once the Deed is Done has no category or preview because it does not have a US edition. On Amazon UK it is listed as Jewish Fiction, War Story Fiction, and Literary Fiction. There it also has a sample which shows the text is third-person past tense.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Scribner, November 2025), 176 pages. Long-listed for the Booker Prize 2025. Young man working as a shanker (gathering and selling shrimp) in Northern England, aspiring guitarist, meets Hollywood producer. Good blurb, good use of A+ material, but I couldn’t tell what year(s) this story is set in. Per Google: 1962. 4.2 stars w/1,743 reviews. Third-person present tense.

The winner will be announced on June 12th.

Broad observations:

Of the five:

· Three are in present tense (but one has no preview, so who knows?)

· Two are in first person (but one has no preview, so who knows?)

· Two are placed during or immediately after WWII (still)

· Two are super short. One of those is doing very well. The other book with significant sales is 496 pages (Whew! Short is a trend I’d rather not see. Heh.)

Shockingly, most of these publishers are neglecting Amazon’s book page opportunities, and one has no category at all. This is not doing their writers any service. Most things in writing and publishing are hard. Using the Amazon page and metadata is both critical and easy.

I would imagine these authors are invested in the trad system. I mean, they’ve received the accolades. But their publishers are not invested enough in their sales to do the basic work on their Amazon pages. And they seem to be doing little to nothing to drum up true reader reviews. I suppose working the awards cycle is the priority, but don’t they want to stay in business?

These are prize-winning-level books!

It’s interesting that the two books actually selling both have helpful blurbs and are making use of the A+ material.

Indies are way ahead of these guys on the small details because we have to be.

I’d be interested to know whether any of these stories appeal to you. Have you heard of them? Read them? If you are traditionally published, do you have access to your Amazon page and metadata? Is your publisher exploiting it to the fullest?

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News:

You can see my focus here on things publishing-related as I herd ten thousand details toward the gate for Farewell, O Syria: book cover (coming soon!), website revamp, front and back matter… Just now, it seems endless.

I want to get this done so I can dig into the next story. I’ve been constructing it, but had to put it aside a few times for more urgent matters.

We have a closing next week on our house sale. (Bitter sweet. What a gift that place was for us!) We made a marathon journey last weekend to look at houses. Nearly made offers on two, but couldn’t quite get there. We’re looking for our forever home and want to be excited about whatever we choose. Not, “that’ll do”. So far, the compromises are too big a stretch. We’re trying to balance being choosy with just getting on with it. I’m afraid none will compare to the one we are leaving behind. We’ll see.

I hope you are all well. Do you have any adventures you’d like to share? I’m getting a little antsy out here in the sandy flatlands.

Lausanne

Preface I:

Kay published these as Book One (1998) and Book Two (2000), but I would argue they are one story in two volumes, not a story and a sequel. I hadn’t realized there were two and came to the end of Sailing to Sarantium and thought, “What? That’s it?” It’s much more like the non-trilogy The Lord of the Rings, which is really one story broken into three parts, primarily due to limitations on binding all of that into one massive book. So, for The Sarantium Mosaic, like LOTR, you need to read both volumes.

Preface II:

I’m learning that my brain has a difficult time with historical fantasy. Reading regular fantasy, I just roll with whatever the writer gives me. With historical fantasy it takes about 100 pages for my brain to settle down and stop searching for the real historical connections. Is it just me?

The first book I read by Kay was Tigana, apparently his most acclaimed work. Set in an Italian Renaissance-like context, I came to it with zero knowledge of the political context he’d used as his model, but still couldn’t shut down the loud semi-conscious static of trying to align it with something “real”. I also wasn’t crazy about the story. It did not move me the way it obviously affected so many thousands of readers. (Goodreads: 4.08 stars w/52,000+ ratings!)

However, being fascinated with Byzantine history and finding so few novels in that context, I committed to reading the Byzantine-like Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors, even with my doubts.

Comments:

I finished the first book a year or two ago. The premise and characters were fantastical enough, and the context generic and micro enough that I didn’t have a lot of mental distraction. The structure was a journey, character’s meeting each other along the way and developing relationships within the hardships of travel and change. There wasn’t sufficient direct involvement with macro issues to make my subconscious go in search of connections. Then came what felt like an unresolved ending.

I just finished the second volume. Here I did struggle to quiet the background noise of wanting to attach characters and plot to what I know of Emperor Justinian’s period, (see my last post) especially now that the story was set in Sarantium (the stand-in for Constantinople). I did finally come to an equilibrium: oh, he is like him, she is like her, but also this one is like her, and none of them are really like the historical people and the plot is definitely not anything like what happened… oof.

By then, I’d read about 75% of the two volumes. There were so many people, so many plotlines, all so—Byzantine (there, I said it)—that I wasn’t sure who the protagonist was, who I was supposed to care most for. However, the characters were well-constructed, and since I will slog through a lot just to stay adjacent to things Byzantine, I pushed on.

Midway through this volume, the pace suddenly ramped up. First, a night of partner-swapping. I guess there were plot and character reasons for all of that, but it didn’t feel like it. I could go back and have a closer look at the web of relationships, but I’m convinced most of that was unnecessary, came out of nowhere, and stretched plausibility even in a fantasy world. It all felt “dangerous”, but why?

However, from that point, the story runs headlong into an intense series of events, full of twists to the very end. So, the last 25% is unputdownable. There is the main story climax, a strong “final complication”, and a long denouement that wraps up with more surprises.

Now if I were twenty years old, I’d consider going back to the beginning to read everything again. There would be a lot of dopamine hits from recognizing the setups, the connections, and understanding more of what was happening along the way. On the first read, it’s such a tangled mass, it’s hard to follow every thread. A second read would be like a treasure hunt.

These are popular and successful books. (4.2 and 4.3 stars with 15-17K ratings on Goodreads). But my TBR pile is way too high for a second read. I must move on.

Have any of you read The Sarantine Mosaic? I’d be super interested to know if you had a similar experience. Also, do you read much historical fantasy? If so, do you struggle to relax into the story? Do your thoughts go on their own quest like mine? I love the idea of historical fantasy and never have any trouble reading stories around King Arthur tales, but for some reason other historical fantasy does a number on my brain.

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Thanks for reading!

Lausanne

Before now, as a new writer, I did not want to read anything that might overly influence or even confuse my poor head while trying to construct my own work from the historical record. With my first novel now in the prep-for-publishing stages (formatting, book cover, front and back matter, etc.), and two others researched and outlined, I’m finally allowing myself to read a small collection of novels set closely to my time and place of focus (Late Antique Near East).

By “close” I mostly mean within hundreds of years. There are very few stories written in English set within the historical events I portray. Most novels of Late Roman/Byzantine scope take up their tales from the much later Crusader era or the century before mine, when General Belisarius was doing the will of the long-reigning Emperor Justinian and his power-sharing Empress Theodora.

Before expounding on these novels as I read them, I thought I would set the stage with these two most famous characters.

Emperor Justinian reigned for 38 years (527-565 AD) during which he commissioned the codification of Roman law, establishing the legal framework that remains foundational to many of the world’s legal systems today. Although not a soldier himself, he launched military campaigns to retake Roman lands from the barbarians (Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals) who’d overrun Italy, North Africa, and Southern Spain. His ambitions and resulting taxation sparked the Nika Riots, which destroyed Constantinople’s old cathedral, the Great Church. When the smoke cleared, he commissioned the Hagia Sophia, which still stands (after the collapse of the first dome 20 years after construction).

Justinian had the unfortunate experience of ruling the empire during the first bubonic plague, a pestilence he reportedly suffered himself but survived. He has the “curse” of having this pandemic named after him: the Justinian Plague. During its peak years (541-544) the Yersinia pestis may have claimed as many as 5,000-10,000 lives per day in the capital.

In 540, the Sassanid/Persian ruler Khosrow I invaded Roman Syria, sacking Antioch and generally rampaging through the region while Justinian was distracted by western wars and a flea-borne bacteria.

Because all that was not enough, in the 550s, the Eastern Mediterranean was hit with a series of massive earthquakes, after which Justinian sent relief and support for reconstruction efforts.

About this time he also commissioned two monks to travel to China to discover the secrets of silk production and smuggle silkworm eggs back to Constantinople—an early example of industrial espionage (for another, see this article).

But one of his most consequential deeds was to choose a former actress (read: prostitute) as his empress.

Empress Theodora was the daughter of a bear-keeper for the Greens. As such, she grew up around the Hippodrome. When her father was killed, her family was impoverished, and the bear-keeper’s girls had to turn to acting as a means of survival. According to the contemporaneous historian Procopius, (who may or may not have been exaggerating), Theodora was especially debauched in her performances, public and private.

As a young woman, she left the stage and Constantinople to be the mistress of a governor in North Africa, was abandoned by him and traveled back to Constantinople via Alexandria and Antioch. During her journey she was exposed to Monophysite/Miaphysite Christianity and returned to the capital a changed woman.

Once introduced to Justinian (before he became emperor), he was so smitten that he convinced his uncle, Justin I, to change the laws to allow women of the stage to marry.

When Justinian became emperor, Theodora ruled alongside him with a degree of authority unprecedented in Byzantine history.

During this time she influenced the laws to expand women’s rights, abolish forced prostitution of young girls, established a convent for former sex slaves and protected the non-conforming Miaphysites from persecution by the politically dominant Chalcedonian Church.

After 20 years as empress, at the age of 50, she died of what was likely some form of cancer.

Justinian was left to rule alone for another 17 years.

Within the orbit of these two, we have the daring military feats of Belisarius, (later hailed by modern historians as “The Last Roman”) and the shenanigans of his wife Antonina. Add the historian Procopius and the high-ranking eunuch Narses, who rose from palace administrator to military commander, and you have plenty of scope for stories.

My work starts in the next century, but I am enjoying reading what other fiction writers have created from this rich raw material.

More of that coming soon!

Meanwhile, I’d love to know what novels you’ve read set in the Byzantine context!

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Always,

Lausanne

It’s been several months since I finished reading The Book of Saladin, the second book in Tariq Ali’s Islam Quintet. I read the first, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, back in 2014 and wrote about it the following year. (I’ve just pulled that blog post over to my Substack feed so you can now read it here.)

Having had a meh response to the first, why would I move to the second 11 years later?

Because these are stories I want to love: set off the beaten path, with points of view from regular folks, those who have to navigate the world in which they have so little direct effect on the bigger events. Not the rulers, but those who must survive the vicissitudes of those in power.

Coincidentally, this story, like The Secret Chord, is structured as a telling from one commissioned to record the life of another. Saladin’s life story is told from the point of view of Isaac bin Yakub, a Jewish scribe who spends decades in the Arab camps observing and recording the anticipation of the Saracens’ recapture of Jerusalem, its aftermath, and the various hangers-on in Saladin’s orbit: his nephews, another scribe, a favorite wife, etc.

As with Natan in The Secret Chord, the narrator Isaac has his own concerns and trials, but the focus is on the mover and shaker—Saladin. The narrator is not the main character.

There were times I nearly put this book down. When we’re immersed in the crusade periods, we have come to expect sweeping movements and action, large-scale drama. The Book of Saladin is constructed as years of close character studies. Even so, the most developed characters were the others: a feisty wife, a flamboyant advisor. Saladin, ironically, felt the most distant—more described than experienced.

I am glad I finished it, but while the characters have some unique qualities, I didn’t come away feeling like I “know” any of them, even the narrator. Had it been set in a time and place either too common or that holds little interest to me, I likely would have drifted away and not returned.

I crave stories in these less common settings and points of view, but both of these (The Book of Saladin and Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree) lack a sense of immersion. The characters are interesting, but I can’t say I found them intriguing or people I grew to care much for.

I will keep trying; there are five books in the series. I’ll have to read more than one every 10 years though, because I won’t last THAT long.

Meanwhile, our temporary move is DONE.

The house has hit the market and swiftly creating a buzz. It is an iconic structure in the neighborhood and has enchanting features inside and out.

What’s next for us? The day after we turned the house over to the realtor, I started writing scenes for Book II. Finally under way!

I hope you are all well and have dug out from under any winter storms, or are surviving peak summer heat—for those of you on the other side!

Many blessings to you all!

Lausanne

The following was written in March, 2015 and originally published on my WordPress blog Long Ago & Far Away.

While working long hours last Fall, I slowly made my way through Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali. Set in 15th Century Spain, a family of Muslim landowners cope with Ferdinand and Isabella’s Reconquista.

I am always excited to read a tale from Long Ago & Far Away. Unfortunately, this one was a struggle.

SPOILER ALERT!

For the first half of the book, it was difficult to know which character was the protagonist. Most of this portion is backstory, or story-within-story. Who am I supposed to care about? I nearly put it down but hung in there because of what I had already invested. I love books set in other cultures, and I accept that the target audience might be more accustomed to the slower pace. So, thinking it could just be me, and not wanting to miss out, I slogged on.

Then things got more interesting and focused on two characters.

Then everyone died.

Except one fellow.

And the whole thing felt like a setup for the next phase of his life. A sequel?

The book is part of the Islam Quintet—a series by Mr. Ali. But the next book is not a sequel. It’s a story about Saladin—who is not a part of Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree. As far as I can tell, we don’t ever get back to this story.

The problem is structure and focus. I love the idea of the book, but it meanders and then ends. Clearly, Mr. Ali wants us to care about the loss of a centuries-old culture. But it’s the lives of people that draw readers in, and I couldn’t care about anyone because the story is everywhere at once and therefore emotionally nowhere.

I wanted so much to love it. I may be willing to try the others in the series simply because I want them to be good.

You can read Amazon reviews here.

And Goodread reviews here.

You can read my more recent comments on Book II of the Islam Quintet here.

I thought I’d pop up for a “hello” and “Happy New Year” before it’s Valentine’s Day.

We’re making progress here with loading storage container #2 and shuttling the stuff we’ll be living with to our temporary, rural homestead. So, here’s a general update while I vacuum and mop plaster dust (electrical upgrades complete):

Writing Book II: Plot hole filled. Yay! I feel good about the solution even though it comes with its own challenges. It fits well into the larger plot and creates a strong thread to Book III. Now to get serious about a 1^st draft. But then, trying to move out of this house of 13 years, I gave up. I’ve put it all aside for a rare off-season. Brain not cooperating when obsessing over which box goes into storage and which comes with us to the temporary location, etc. But big sigh of relief knowing I have a clear direction for this subplot. Once I sit down again, I’ll be able to scribble with mad intent.

Reading: I have managed to finish a HistFic novel recently. Will comment on it later. Otherwise, I’m just flipping through fine art or printmaking history books, discovering via printmaking history that there were/are many fine artists from the 20^th century that I can happily explore. See below.

Printmaking and fine art: The studio is in shambles.

I’m consolidating things into categories based on what can survive temperature extremes in a container (for how long?) and what must come with me.

I’m filling the void by reading/studying art and printmaking history—discovering and rediscovering ways of making art that excite me with possibility. Because printmaking as fine art exploded during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries, I’m finding a surprising amount of modern art that I love and didn’t know was there. I’d long ago dismissed it all as the-emperor-has-no-clothes ugly nonsense.

Apparently, there was a lot more going on than I knew: works of beauty and thoughtfulness, beyond the raw, tiresome, in-your-face shock value and angst-for-angst’s-sake that saturated the most noisome trends. I’m finding these hidden (to me) gems via printmaking history, then following those leads to their other works—artists like those from the Pattern and Decoration Movement: Robert Kushner, Miriam Schapiro, Brad Davis (the sound on this video is lousy, but it will give you an overview). Also Richard Diebenkorn, Stuart Shils. And I’ve stumbled upon current artists who intrigue me and make me smile: Anna Freeman Bentley, Yashua Klos, Dan Welden, others… I really need to start a list somewhere, but for now, I’d have trouble finding it.

Looking into 2026: Hopefully by the time Farewell, O Syria is back from the copyeditor (early March), I’ll be settled enough to kick into publishing gear. I should be spending my current time preparing for all of that, but see above.

The next steps:

o Review/approve copy edits

o Write front and back copy (I should be doing this now…)

o Layout manuscript for ebook and print

o Hire cover designer

o Submit to Proofreader

o Publish

o Possibly use a professional ARC reader program (Advance Reader Copies go out to appropriate readers who might then write early reviews for the book, giving the project a needed boost.)

o Possible Goodreads Giveaway

If that’s not enough, I’ll be drafting Book II. I’ll also have three of Mom’s five manuscripts with me to work on if I get bored. Hah.

Visual art is back to its far distant burner again. Well, I will have a selection of standard art materials handy: watercolor, gouache, drawing, etc. But no printmaking. I’m sending all that to storage. It’s too much to drag out, set up and have to pack up again once we find our next home.

And so, onward!

How’s your 2026 unfolding?

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Blessings,

Lausanne

We’re pulling up stakes for a move to an interim location while we prep and sell our beloved castle. The goal is to buy the next one without getting into a contingency situation. So, this one must be off the books first. Gracious family members are letting us borrow a place for this latest in-between time.

While I’m in the throws of madness, I thought I would introduce you to some of my favorite Substacks.

Recent Discoveries:

“Anna Comnena”:

This writer is new to Substack. She hasn’t divulged much about herself, but she seems to be a gal after my own heart. She posts articles and imagery of places from off the beaten path. She is also active on Notes. Always with something fascinating to share.

Anna Comnena

The Vision of the Three Kings

By and by, do you happen to ask yourself about the nature of The Magi’s vision? What kind of manifestation made worthwhile neglecting their observatories, abandoning their homes, putting their lives at stake on an uncertain journey…

Read more

10 months ago · 7 likes · Anna Comnena

“The Empress of Byzantium”:

With that title, you know I had to investigate. She writes long-from articles on aspects of Byzantine History. Here’s a good place to start:

The Empress of Byzantium

Byzantium for Beginners

I spend a godawful amount of time thinking about Byzantium…

Read more

a year ago · 97 likes · 23 comments · The Empress of Byzantium

Jackie is killing me with her informative eye candy:

All About Ancient Art

Real Estate in Ancient Pompeii

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time in a Roman house. Specifically, I’ve been processing archaeological finds in the corner of a Roman garden in Pompeii. With this in mind, I thought it would be fun to think about a typical Roman home both in terms of floor plan and functionality. We’ll do just that in today’s newsletter…

Read more

a year ago · 24 likes · 3 comments · Jackie, PhD Student & Educator

Kelley has several newsletters of interest. If you’d like some fascinating imagery for your holidays, start here:

The People's Archive

This Public Domain artist brought Scandinavian folklore to life

If you are as enthralled as I am by the folklore of Northern Europe, then you should know the artist John Bauer. His illustrations are a catalogue of Scandinavian myth, filled with moss-covered trolls, princesses, and deep, Northern forests…

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10 months ago · 8 likes · 3 comments · Kelley Citrin

Oh, goodness, there are many more, but these should keep you busy for a bit while I pick through all this stuff and decide what to offload, what to stack in PODS, and what to keep at hand for...how long?

Packing up my tiny, newly established studio again is rough. Leaving this house is going to hard. Oof, so much history here. But it is time to move on and let someone else steward it into it’s 100th year.

Farewell, O Syria will ship off to the copy editor in early January. It is due to return in early March. Meanwhile, I’m still brainstorming my plot for Book II. I need a flash of brilliance to close up a small, but critical plot hole.

But more importantly, Merry Christmas to you all!

Beyond Bloomsbury

Step into Christmas: A Celebration of Colour

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8 months ago · 119 likes · 48 comments · Victoria K. Walker

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Always,

Lausanne

The Figurative Drawing Board:

My Plot Outline for the follow-up story to Farewell, O Syria is exciting, but I have a couple of big gaping holes that have me stumped.

I’m fascinated by my chosen historical context. It screams for someone to dramatize such consequential events. (It would make a great opera!) I’m trying to integrate simultaneous historical catastrophes AND weave my fictional characters through the external plot. I have meaningful internal torment to put them through, and some solid narrative ideas, but there are time gaps that feel too inactive. I can’t put everyone in a coma for four months. Hmmm.

I have enough experience in creative problem-solving to trust the process. But, oof, it’s scary when it feels impossible. I’m asking the big questions: what if this or that, but more importantly, what if I throw out the whole thing? Not in defeat, but in a freedom that this phase of the project allows, rather than after I have 100,000 words written. This is a time to hold the ideas loosely and let them shift or fly away completely.

For now, I’ve clarified three primary issues and think I will walk away for a few days. Sometimes all it takes is a nap. Meanwhile, I have research to review. I often find my ideas in the historical record. The most obscure, unrelated tidbit can send the imagination in a surprising direction. So, we’ll hope for that.

The Real Drawing Board:

It is a new thing for me to have complete freedom in visual art. When I was twelve, I was smitten with scenery and lighting design for the stage. Since then, 98% of my art has been in a specific context: scenic art, design illustration, furniture, murals, commissioned paintings—always with a specific project to serve. Clients waiting.

This open-ended, do-as-you-please thing is strange. I have several broad subject-matter categories that I am driven to explore, so I’ll be a long time before exhausting the “what”. But which process? Which materials? What style? What mood?

I’ve spent much of the last year learning about printmaking—which I am loving! I’ve been experimenting with its limitations, pushing against the supposed boundaries, and trying hard not to pressure myself to create “finished products”.

As someone who has used my visual art skills primarily within a profession, this freedom is like a desert journey without a map. It requires quite a mind shift.

So far I’m all over the place, from dark moody prints to silly decorative collages, none of them yet ready for prime time and all of them a bit of a mess, either technically or compositionally.

As with the writing, I’m trying to let the process do the work, but there’s a loud voice in my head screaming that I should Be More PRODUCTIVE!

Oh, hush, tyrant!

Go do something fun this weekend!

As always,

Lausanne

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Long Ago & Far Away

I seem to spend much of my life in between this or that, frustrated that I need to make moment-by-moment decisions without sufficient information. For many years this resulted from a nomadic lifestyle, making it hard for me to know how deep to dig into my context, always with an eye to some catastrophic fail of a visa renewal, or an approaching guerrilla war.

It’s neurosis-building.

To help with the constant (or only threatening) disruption, I decided to pretend I lived in a yurt—hoping to give myself a mental framework for settling in versus being ready to go at a moment’s notice. It helped somewhat, but has never quite put an end to the longing to get stuck in to somewhere, or something.

This is mere hangnails compared to the uncertainty much of the world lives with, I know. And yet, I still must navigate it—and myself.

Right now, there are several pending factors that might directly affect my time and brain commitment (possible day job/possible move to another state), but these big items are largely out of my hands just now. So, I have to choose where to focus without knowing when I might have to drop everything for a major pivot.

Meanwhile, after decades with one overwhelming project, the manuscript for Farewell, O Syria is done. It’s had all I intend to give it. But I’m now stuck waiting. It is scheduled for copyediting in early January and not due back until early March (long book = lots of words to review). It has moved to a back burner for me. And that feels strange.

And so, I’m chipping away at all the learning and doing that still needs to happen in order to push the publish button sometime in 2026—website copy, marketing copy, etc., etc. But this all feels very piecemeal. I’m craving that sense of One Big Driving Project.

I decided to take a look at Mom’s closest-to-publishing-ready manuscript. It needed final hand edits typed into the digital file and chapters broken up. I thought I’d take a few weeks to get that important hurdle behind me. It took two days.

So back again, needing to decide how best to spend this strange phase. I’ve had all the time management training ever produced since the 1960s (my dad was a middle-management guy), but do I go back to loading in the big rocks first and let the piecemeal stuff get done when it becomes urgent? Or do I focus and consolidate, getting every weeny thing ready for Farewell before moving on to the Next Big Thing—at the risk of scattering my brain and/or having the rug pulled by a Big Event?

Welp, I’ve decided: I’m going to start on Book II. Let the other stuff fit in the cracks. I think I’ll be more productive if primarily focused on the Big One and let the other stuff get done when it flares up.

The good news is: Book II has 20,000 words written in 2020, ready to go. The plot is roughed into the historical context, and much of the decades of research for Farewell will get me halfway there.

First task: Read through the old manuscript and note any needed additional research and pending story questions.

Then go from there.

Whew. The decision is half the battle!

— Lausanne

I hope you are all doing well. Big holiday plans? We’re sticking around. The biggest gathering will be for Thanksgiving, smaller group for Christmas. Looking forward to seeing everyone and enjoying some cooler weather. What about you?

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I’ve noted before that I write few true book reviews. I am more interested in the connections between stories. As they simmer in my brain, I’m often struck by similarities that are less obvious at first glance. Of course, my own lens affects what I see—colored by the ideas meandering through my soul at that moment. So, for what it’s worth, here’s where these two recent reads converge for me.

Shared Themes:

The Secret Chord, by Geraldine Brooks, traces the life of King David in the 10^th century BC. Silence, by Shusaku Endo, follows the odyssey of a Portuguese Jesuit missionary in 17^th-century Japan. Brooks and Endo’s characters inhabit grim and gritty worlds, unsparing in their brutality and subjugation. Their stories examine the raw humanity, trials, and obsessions of men whom we might, from our tidy armchairs, judge as abject moral or spiritual failures. The distance in time and geography is bridged by questions of grace—that unmerited favor—and how we experience it while still walking in the consequences of our fallenness: when there are no answers, when Providence feels absent, and when God has seemingly nothing to say while we endure the day-in-day-out doubt and uncertainty.

The Secret Chord:

Most of us know the story of David, at least as far as Goliath is concerned, and possibly something of his faithfulness and resistance to King Saul as Saul descended into madness. But once made king, David’s story is blighted by a crisis of character. His unbridled lust leads to adultery (rape, if we consider whether Bathsheba had any choice in the matter) and murder.

The resulting generational chaos and strife drive David’s family into rebellion, incestuous rape, and fratricide.

In The Secret Chord, we see all of this through the efforts of Natan, as he compiles a biography of David, at the king’s request. Natan, the prophet of God, strives to advise and direct the king, making it clear that David must reap the consequences for his sin for decades to come. Natan provides a compassionate yet objective narrative of David’s victories and failings, contrasting the horrors with the beauty of David’s repentance and longing for God and the bright light of grace and redemption implied in the rise of young Solomon.

Silence:

In Silence, Portuguese Jesuit Sebastião Rodrigues arrives in 17^th-century Japan driven to understand the rumored apostasy of his previous mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira. Cristóvão has disappeared, leaving a trail of clues—a mystery that Sebastião must solve. Through journal-like letters chronicling his tale, we witness Sebastião’s inner turmoil and gradual understanding of the one who has gone before him, while contending for his own faith under brutal persecution.

I’ll withhold any more of the plot as it is an edge-of-your-seat spiritual suspense that could be too easily spoiled. However, it follows a similar theme of failure and judgment and questions of grace when God seemingly withholds all presence, guidance, and relief.

Shared Structure:

We walk through these stories with Natan and Sebastião, uncovering the lives of David and Cristóvão. Natan interviews those who have known David since childhood to understand the king’s beginnings. Sebastião searches for answers about Cristóvão’s fate, seeking any and all who might help him grasp the circumstances and causes of the unimaginable. The narrative forms of biography and letters add layers of telling that provide distance from the immediate events. This structure introduces an element of observation and interiority that is presented and interpreted about another and for another. As such, these stories demonstrate the complexities of understanding and portraying God’s work in others as well as ourselves. They resonate without providing superficial answers to our experience of grace.

This narrative distance, this one-step-removed filter, is a structure I am planning for a difficult book I have outlined. In mine, the driving character, like David, is a shadowy historical figure so complex that I feel the need to tell her story through the eyes of an observer rather than from her direct point of view.

As with Natan and Sebastião, my point-of-view character will need her own story interlaced with the true main character’s. I hope by doing so to explore this multi-layered approach to how we perceive and affect the outworking of grace in each other.

Before attempting this level of storytelling, I need to absorb more successful tales using this structure.

Have you read other novels that use this narrative distance? How were the main character and point-of-view characters’ stories woven together? Why might the writer have chosen to do so?

If you crave variety and stories from Off the Beaten Path, I have two treats for you.

I’ve had a reasonably good spell of fiction reading recently. Only one DNF out of the last six novels. The two presented here were the right combination of escape and that lingering appeal that draws you to bedtime with: Oh, goodie. I get to read some more of this!

While traditional publishers reach for repeated formulas, Indies have the freedom to take risks and explore a wider world of ideas.

On a continuum of “wider world”, you can’t get much farther apart than these two.

When Royal Heads are Hunted is set in the 16th century among the Calusa tribe of southwest Florida. Here, Will Granger immerses us in the Calusas’ lives right at their moment of crisis—the Spanish conquistador invasion of the New World. We then follow our Calusa protagonist by canoe across the Gulf to Montezuma’s city of Aztecs. There, we get a double-exposure of culture. While the Calusa prince tries to accomplish his critical mission to save his people, we see him grapple with the wonder and horror of his own cross-cultural experience among the Aztecs.

Will spins a creative, fast-paced tale of travel, adventure, and the challenge of change. His extensive research animates the story rather than bogging it down.

I received a free coupon for this ebook, but with no discussion or expectation that I would write any commentary or review. I genuinely enjoyed this story and would not hesitate to read another of Will’s projects, knowing I will be taken on an adventure well Off the Beaten Path.

You can find his book here and his Substack here.

From Another Time and Place:

Adelie - The Ramen Diaries - Having read several heavy hitters (to be discussed in a future post), Diana von Oertzen’s “Rockabilly Space Opera Romance” landed with the perfect escapist mood. I enjoyed every moment of this lighthearted futuristic, 1950s-aesthetic, sweet romance.

Adelie, our main character, is a pampered aristocrat who’s just joined the Westerhaven military academy. Suddenly stripped of the trappings of home, away from her lifelong comforts, she must now learn to cook her own meals (ramen, of course) while proving herself among her competitive fellow cadets—holding her own with the boys, while still enjoying frilly skirts after-hours. Along the way, she wins a quirky group of friends and gains perspective and insight into her past.

Available FREE here!

I received this ebook for free (just as you can!) and enjoyed it so much, I bought the next two.

You can find her books here and her Substack here.

Indies give you their unique offerings produced mostly on their own. If they hire help, the cost is on them. But the benefit is total creative control—no forced conformity to a publisher’s anything.

That’s not to say that Indies have no concern for what sells. They certainly do. But they have the freedom to determine their own priorities, while traditional publishers keep hoping for a hit by recreating past successes.

With Indies we are blessed with the charm of tales we’d be unlikely to find were we still dependent on the traditional system.

If you want stories that truly resonate with your unique interests, mood, point of view, and curiosities, take a chance on Indies.

Have you read a good indie novel recently?

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And with that, the Roman army abandoned Syria to the conquering Saracens.

In AD 636, four and a half centuries before the First Crusade, after decades of warfare to successfully oust the Persians from Syria, the Romans were routed by the nascent Muslim army. From their defeat at the Battle of Yarmuk, they retreated to Constantinople with their heroic but ageing emperor. Thus began nearly fourteen hundred years of transformation.

How did this happen? And what was it like for the Roman Syrians left behind to live under yet another invading force?

It has long baffled me that despite upheaval, famine, war, and illness, people go on. They cope. They live their lives. Somehow. Not everyone. But many adjust to what life requires, carrying the scars, but forging through.

I am compelled to examine this resilience amid loss; to imagine their stories. My thoughts return to the times and places that fascinate me most—Late Antique Syria and points further east. Here, there are tales that need telling.

One evening in 1993, I envisioned a boy running through the streets of Damascus announcing the arrival of the Muslim army. At the time, I was exploring early church history and living in a London community with a high Muslim population. I’d just read Amin Maalouf’s The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and began to wonder where the interaction between Christianity and Islam began. That drove me back to the beginning. With questions following questions, I followed.

By the late 1990s, I began gathering reference material. Most of the books that are now dog-eared were not yet published. Internet resources were scarce, and so was my time. But the story kernel never left me alone.

In 2002, on a rare break from Sumatra, in the cool air of the Cameron Highlands, the story tumbled out in the space of a few hours.

Alex kept running, and I did not even know his name. But I followed.

In 2012, I began the deliberate research.

The first garbled draft was completed in 2019.

Through three major career changes, international and domestic moves, and caregiving of parents, I plodded on, day-in and day-out, much of the writing done well before dawn in order to manage my work or family responsibilities.

With another two weeks, I expect to complete my final, pre-copyeditor draft. There is still much work to do, but the story is complete.

Finally, Alex is here.

And I can’t wait for you to meet him!

More soon,

Lausanne

First, massive thanks to those who read all 220,000 words!

You're amazing!

It's been surreal receiving responses and even hearing other people discuss my book while I just listen. This thing that's been in my head for decades now bounces around in the hearts of others!

How weird is that?

While waiting on reader feedback, I worked on the copy editing—making sure names and places are spelled consistently, finding 10,001 typos and other oopsies, homogenizing the Arabic, and hand drawing the maps.

I've added a small scene and some additional moments to the denouement. I'm trying to balance a satisfying experience with holding some things back, leaving threads to pull readers into the next book. With the second likely some years in the works, I've made these revisions so this story can be read as a sturdy stand-alone.

I've decided not to include the series title on the first book. When the second is complete, I will revise the first’s cover with "Book One of... Series Title".

My stories will never be written at a yearly pace, much less "rapid release". And I'm good with that. Hey, I'm pursuing the "artisan" model here! And that’s my excuse. So I want readers to long for the next book without fear I'm going to do a Game of Thrones thing.

In the meantime, I'm learning all I can about marketing and publishing. None of this is new information—I've been listening to the key self-publishing podcasts for a decade. But every aspect is in constant flux, so planning to implement in 2025/2026 is like trying to jump into a game of Double Dutch and not get slapped.

The biggest news for me is: I have a title!

I've always sensed that when it landed, it would land hard. And it has. After all these years of just a blank...

I also have the series title and a subtitle. I'm working on a tagline and back of book blurb. I have time to let these stew, so I will set them aside and revisit with fresh eyes over the next few weeks.

I'll let you know the book title in my next newsletter.

I’m full of appreciation for you all!

Peace,

Lausanne