The Burning Times: A Novel: A Novel of Medieval France

by Jeanne Kalogridis (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2002

  $25.74

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $4.67

  A sweeping historical epic and powerful romantic drama set in medieval France: a time of the Great Plague, of witchcraft, and the Inquisition. During the height of superstition, in the midst of the Great Plague, religious fervour and terror of witchcraft sweep fourteenth-century France. Locked in a torture chamber within the walled city of Carcassonne the Abbess Marie Francoise listens helplessly to the screams of her sisters while she awaits the arrival of the Inquisition to take her confession. As relapsa, the worst of heretics, a fiery death awaits her at the stake. The Grand Inquisitor's scribe, Brother Michel, arrives with his mentor, Father Charles, confident that her soul can be saved. But upon meeting the Abbess, Michel is assailed by a sudden, horrifying wave of desire for her: a desire that is both physical, and attended by memories of another man's life; and spiritual: for surely this is the woman he saw with his own eyes perform a miracle outside the Palace of the Popes in holy Avignon? As the Abbess slowly divulges her past, Michel's safe and ordered world is ripped apart. Her tale will shake the very foundation of his belief, while his heart will be trapped between the cleansing fires of Christian purity and the seductive flames of his desire.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.35

  During the height of superstition, in the midst of the Great Plague, religious fervour and terror of witchcraft sweep fourteenth-century France. Caught at the heart of this conflict are two young lovers: Brother Luc, Grand Inquisitor's scribe; and the Abbess Marie Francoise, known prior to taking her vows as Sybille. In a torture chamber in the medieval city of Carcassonne, these two people, separated by their convictions and by cruel fate, are suddenly and shockingly reunited. Luc is there to transcribe the confession of a known heretic, who to his horror turns out to be Sybille, his lost love. The guilty secret that Luc fled from, into the safe arms of Mother Church, is that he and Sybille share forbidden magical powers: they are both members of the Race, a mystical sect whose roots lie with the Knights Templar, and far far beyond, to the worship of that most ancient and powerful of deities, the Goddess. In the union between these two lovers lie the future hopes of the Race: but Sybille is condemned to die at the stake; and Luc's heart is caught between the fires of Christian purification, and the flames of his desire.