About this item
Thirteenth-century Bohemia is a dangerous place for a girl, especially one as odd as Mouse, born with unnatural (perhaps supernatural) senses and an uncanny intellect. Is young Mouse a child of the church or a demon of questionable lineage? Even Mouse doesnt know for sure. When young King Ottakar shows up at the Abbey wounded by a traitors arrow, Mouse breaks every church rule to save him. A nascent but powerful attraction sways Mouse to flaunt all propriety and travel with the handsome King to Prague as his personal healer. Caught in the undertow of court politics, Ottakar and Mouse work to uncover the threat against him and to unravel the mystery of her past as they try to find a way they can be together. But when Mouses unusual gifts give rise to a violence and strength that surprise everyone - especially herself - she is forced to ask herself: Will she be prepared for the future that awaits her? A heart-thumping, highly original tale in the vein of Elizabeth Kostovas The Historian, Bohemian Gospel heralds the arrival of a fresh new voice for historical fiction.
About the Author
Dana Chamblee Carpenter's debut novel, BOHEMIAN GOSPEL, won Killer Nashville's 2014 Claymore Award and has been praised as "A grand, thought-provoking adventure in sorrow, joy and magic," by J. T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of What Lies Behind. Mark Richard, author of The Ice at the Bottom of the World says, "Like a rushing river, BOHEMIAN GOSPEL, flows bright, dappled with a patina of legend, and has a current that runs deep and wonderfully dark. The reader will be swept along in this bold debut."
Her second novel, THE DEVIL'S BIBLE, a sequel to BOHEMIAN GOSPEL, will be out in March 2017.
Carpenter's award-winning short fiction is also featured in Killer Nashville Noir: Cold Blooded and has appeared in The Arkansas Review, Jersey Devil Press, and Maypop.
An Arkansas native, Carpenter received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Mississippi. Though initially lured by the pragmatic academic world, Carpenter secretly nurtured her dream of writing stories, and, once the dust had settled on the dissertation, she gave herself over to what she'd known since she was a child - she was meant to be a storyteller.
She currently teaches creative writing and American Literature at a university in Nashville, TN, where she lives with her husband and two children, who are desperately trying to turn the house into a model of Luna Lovegood's eccentric home with glass beads and bells and little figures nestled into every nook and cranny. Hopefully there aren't any exploding dragon horns.
