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Praise for One for Sorrow... "An enticing picture of sixth-century
Byzantium...and the traffic in holy artifacts [in] the early
history of Christianity." -Publishers Weekly In Byzantium, the
capital of the 6th century Roman Empire, annual games are held to
celebrate the founding of the city. Several courtiers, obliged by
office to attend, idly watch the chariot races and the bear baiting
from the imperial box. Suddenly they--and the crowd-are electrified
as a magnificent bull surges into the arena. Those who worship
Mithra make quiet reverance to the sacred animal while a trio of
bull leapers enters in his wake. John, Lord Chamberlain to the
Christian Emperor, is among those surprised into breathing tribute.
He soon receives a further shock: surely the lovely young girl
vaulting the beast had once been his lover. Later, making his way
home through the thronged streets, John stumbles over the body of
his friend Leukos, Keeper of the Plate. There are plenty of
witnesses: an Egyptian brothel keeper, a young mason working on the
Church of the Holy Wisdom, a mad stylite, a henpecked innkeeper,
and the bull leapers from Crete. Now duty and guilt demand that
John discover the murderer.... The husband and wife team of Mary
Reed and Eric Mayer published One for Sorrow, their first
full-length novel featuring John, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor
Justinian, in 1999. The series has since received much praise and
several awards, including the Arizona Book Award, the IPPY Best
Mystery Award, and the Bruce Alexander History Mystery Award.
home.earthlink.net/~maywrite
That's the mystery Emperor Justinian in-explicably sends his Lord
Chamberlain John the Eunuch to solve, at the very time John
desperately needs to clear himself of accusations he murdered a
senator in the Hippodrome.
Mehenopolis, a pilgrim destination thanks to its ancient shrine to
a snake deity as well as the home of the late sheep, is nearly as
byzantine in its ways and undercurrents as Constantinople.
Among suspicious characters John encounters are a pretentious local
landowner battling a self-styled magician for control of the
lucrative shrine, an exiled heretical cleric, an itinerant
bee-keeper, and a disgraced charioteer. Meanwhile, in
Constantinople, John's good friend Anatolius does his best to trace
the senator's murderer.
At stake are not only John's honor and his head, but also the
family with whom he recently reunited, now in danger of being
broken apartor worse.
"A finely nuanced historical...with a plot of great
subtlety....Those who appreciate strong historical backgrounds and
solid plotting will get their money's worth." -Publishers Weekly
"Stocking their novels with period arcana, palace intrigue and more
than a few curious complications...Reed and Mayer have created a
distinctive historical series that has yet to disappoint." â
-January Magazine It's 539 AD, and John the Lord Chamberlain finds
his investigations hampered by squabbling courtiers, servants with
social ambitions, an eccentric host, and an egotistic inventor-not
to mention a herd of prophesying goats and a protective whale. The
Mithran Anatolius and the excubitor captain Felix only add to
John's worries when they fall under the spell of two ambitious
women. Can the trio avoid Theodora's wrath as they work to protect
a child and stop a heartless killer? Does the solution lie within
the villa where all have assembled, back in Constantinople, or in
some other world altogether? The acclaimed historical series
featuring John, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian, has
brought husband and wife team Mary Reed and Eric Mayer much praise
and several awards. In 2003, Booklist Magazine named the novels one
of its four Best Little Known Series.
http://home.epix.net/~maywrite
Ambition, intrigue, treachery, murder-another Byzantine mystery...
548 CE, Constantinople. The emperor Justinian, distraught from the
death of his wife Theodora, has exiled John, the Lord Chamberlain.
Soon after, an Egyptian magician tries to raise the empress from
the dead. The unholy ceremony goes awry, and in the aftermath,
supposed demons vanish into the night along with one of the city's
holiest relics. Felix, Captain of the Palace Guard, is selected as
John's successor and charged with recovering the artifact. But it
seems as if half the city wants to possess the relic, see Felix
dead-or both. Worse still, Felix's friend, the shrewd John, has
already sailed for Greece. Now Felix enters a fight for his very
survival, a crucible in which he cannot cannot tell friend from
foe-or worldly dangers from the supernatural. The husband and wife
team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer co-author the award-winning John,
Lord Chamberlain, historical mysteries set in 6th century
Byzantium. http: //home.earthlink.net/ maywrite/
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