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THE MAEVE CHRONICLES
 (formerly The Magdalen Trilogy: see below)

 

Why does Mary Magdalen make only a brief, dramatic appearance in the Gospels and then vanish?  Maybe the world simply hasn’t been ready to hear what she has to say—until now. Meet Maeve, the feisty Celtic Mary Magdalen. Speaking directly to her 21st century audience, she tells her story with wit and humor, wisdom and passion. And it is her story. No one’s disciple, she is lover, bard, priestess, and healer. And like her beloved Jesus, Maeve incarnates the divine redemptive mystery of love.

The Maeve Chronicles recount the life adventures of this refreshingly unconventional Magdalen. Each novel is designed to stand alone, and the series can be read (and re-read!) in any sequence. Think of The Maeve Chronicles as narrative Celtic knotwork: the stories spiraling out and spiraling in, each one whole, each one leading to the others.

 

The Passion of Mary Magdalen

 

          This central novel of The Maeve Chronicles follows the intrepid heroine’s perilous journey through slavery and prostitution in Rome to founding her own holy whorehouse in the good-time town of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. Throughout her trials and triumphs, Maeve never gives up hope of finding her lost beloved, a young man she once knew as Esus, whose life she saved at enormous cost to herself.

The ultimate reunion of the lovers is as stormy as it is ecstatic. As we make our way through the terrain of the Gospels—healings, exorcisms, miracles, feastings, riots, and terrifying prophecy—Maeve and Jesus fight and make love, nurture and confront each other, infusing this unique passion narrative with their passion for each other.

And in the end, they dare together the most awe-full mystery of all.

 

 Prequel

Magdalen Rising: The beginning
(formerly Daughter of the shining isles)

In this Celtic wonder tale, young Maeve and Jesus, brimming with youthful charm and arrogance, find each other and fall in love, forging a bond that is stronger than death. Born to eight warrior-witches on a magical isle, Maeve heads for druid college with high hopes of meeting the Mysterious Other she has glimpsed only in visions and dream.

From the start, Maeve and Esus, as the druids call him, are sparring partners, by turns delighting and outraging each other with their opposing views on just about everything. Their pleasure is overshadowed by a brilliant but unbalanced druid who knows a perilous secret about Maeve’s past. He also becomes obsessed with Esus as a perfect victim for the most sacred druid rite.

In a daring scheme, Maeve risks everything to save the life of the one she loves.

 

Sequel

Bright Dark Madonna

"The best one yet!" - Catherine MacCoun, author of On Becoming an Alchemist

After playing an intimate role in the mystery of the Resurrection, what is left for Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen? Never a follower, will she emerge as a leader of the early church? Will she retire quietly to mother a sacred bloodline? Will she set sail for France to proselytize and go spelunking? The answer: all and none of the above. No sooner does Maeve open her mouth to preach the gospel her way than a fierce debate begins about what to do with the child she is carrying. Maeve has her own ideas about where best to raise the savior’s scion. When she returns to Temple Magdalen, the holy whorehouse she founded, a custody battle of biblical proportions ensues. Maeve, her infant daughter Sara, and Jesus’ mother flee to the remote Taurus Mountains where they live in hiding among the Galatians until a mysterious man is dumped on their doorstep more dead than alive. When Maeve discovers the identity of the man she has healed, she is appalled and determined to keep her family’s secret. But Maeve has reckoned without the will of her brilliant, angry adolescent daughter who resolves to find out the truth about her father—for herself.

Accessible to fans and to those new to The Maeve Chronicles, Bright Dark Madonna takes the reader on a breathtaking journey from the temple porticoes of Jerusalem, to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, to the south of France, and, as always, to the treacherous, beautiful terrain of the human heart.

 

~NEWSFLASH: FOURTH MAEVE CHRONICLE!~

Much to the surprise of the author there is a fourth Maeve Chronicle in the works. The author found that she could not contain Paul of Tarsus and Boudica in the same story. The fourth and final (she hopes) Maeve Chronicle tells the story of Maeve's return to the British Isles. 

Thank you for persisting in your search and with your questions.
 
The Magdalen Trilogy was renamed The Maeve Chronicles when Monkfish became my publisher. Three of The Maeve Chronicles have been published (details follow). A fourth is in progress.
 
Magdalen Rising, The Beginning (first published by Station Hill as Daugher of the Shining Isles) was reissued by Monkfish in 2007. They are the same book. Magdalen Rising is the current edition, and the only edition of that book in print. (Any copies of Daughter are re-sales that do not benefit the author!)
 
The Passion of Mary Magdalen was published in 2006 and came out in paperback in 2007. Some of you anticipated its release as Holy Whore. That was a working title that was jettisoned.
 
Bright Dark Madonna was published by Monkfish in 2009.
 
I am working on the fourth and final of The Maeve Chronicles which I hope will be published in 2011.
 
I am selling on amazon the remaining inventory of The Wild Mother and The Return of the Goddess, earlier novels formerly published by Station Hill. I just reissued How to Spin Gold. It's available by ordering through a bookstore or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. (See links below.)
 
Happy reading!
 

 

 

The Passion of Mary Magdalen  | Magdalen Rising  |  Bright Dark Madonna   |  the author  

contact | Mary Magdalen factoids  |  The Maeve Chronicles  |  readers' room |  press room