“A sparkling, spiritual gem of a tale that splendidly illuminates the searing soul-searching of Cathars and Catholics in medieval Languedoc. Carleton’s achievement makes historical fiction a retelling of history and a discovery of self.”
—STEPHEN O’SHEA, author of The Perfect Heresy and The Friar of Carcassonne
“With Elmina’s Fire, Linda Carleton has succeeded in recreating the challenges of an important if little-known period of the High Middle Ages. In telling her compelling story of desire and the human condition, she captures the world of the medieval Catharism as well as the portentous events that were destined to shape the modern world.”
—JAMES MCDONALD, Cathar Historian, St-Ferriol, France
“In Elmina, Linda Carleton has given us a most unusual heroine: a humble young woman of the Crusades whose epic struggles with her past actions, her faith, her convictions, and the mysterious demons that plague her follow her into a cloistered life. Elmina’s narrative is addressed directly to God. We are merely eavesdroppers on the most intimate of confessions, in which the stakes are life or death. In serene prose undergirded by deep historical knowledge and the passion of one who knows her subject intimately, Carleton weaves her tale like the weavers in her ’Good Christian’ ostal, a tapestry both terrifying and beautiful.”
—KATHY LEONARD CZEPIEL, author of A Violet Season
“This meticulously researched novel describes the quotidian world of a religious order. It is rich with details of a medieval life that was shattered by the Albigensian Crusades. Carleton shows us the urgent and all-encompassing reach of the Catholic Church, and the physical, material, and familial hardships with which it crushed the faithful. She bravely explores the fragile lines between physical and spiritual seduction, art vision and madness, faith and betrayal. Elmina’s Fire is a vivid and nuanced portrayal of both the anguish and the ecstasy that is one brave woman’s search for truth and the love of God.”
—DIANE BONAVIST, author of Purged by Fire: Heresy of the Cathars
“Elmina’s Fire grabbed me from the start and held on. More than once while reading I felt myself holding my breath. Linda Carleton has written Elmina’s story so close to the bone it has the feel of memoir—more remembered than imagined.”
—JOAN HUNTER, Fifth House Lodge, Bridgton, Maine
“Elmina’s Fire is a passionate story of a young woman’s spiritual struggle in the Languedoc region of 13th-century France, a place renowned for its troubadours and poets—and its violent crusades. Elmina, a young woman caught in the crosshairs between warring religions, tells her story to God. Her life is riven by dualisms that she cannot mend. Doctrinal beliefs, whether Catholic or Cathar, have set mother against father, sister against sister, body against soul, spirit against matter, good against evil. Historical yet timely, Elmina’s Fire is a deep exploration of religious beliefs and their consequences.”
—PATRICIA REIS, author of The Dreaming Way and Motherlines
“On the eve of the Albigensian Crusade, Elmina, a sensitive young Catholic nun, is confronted with the horrors perpetrated by the Church and her unintended complicity in its evil. Despite the ’trials of the soul’ that it reveals, Elmina’s Fire leaves the reader with the hope that there is always forgiveness and redemption possible, whether in this lifetime or another.”
—LEAH CHYTEN, author of Light, Radiance, Splendor
“Based on true events, Elmina’s Fire transports readers to southwestern France in the 13th century such that they feel the agonizing decisions the main character makes as she searches for her own spiritual truth. This is a beautifully written, historically accurate debut novel.”
—MARIANNE BOHR, author of Gap Year Girl: A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries