My Heresy

Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic. In S. J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen. His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy. Like The Dante Club and The Alienist, this clever, sophisticated, exceptionally enjoyable novel is written with the unstoppable narrative propulsion and stylistic flair of the very best historical thrillers.

"An all-out women-driven, queer, transgender, multiracial takeover of the Old West . . . and that's exactly what Melissa Lenhardt delivers in her unapologetically badass western, Heresy." - New York Times "Lenhardt has created a bold new story where women have taken their rightful place in the narrative of the Outlaw Western genre; where wit, wisdom and wiles could mean the difference between life and death, and where the fellowship of women bested every challenge." -- Kathleen Kent Margaret Parker and Hattie LaCour never intended to turn outlaw. After being run off their ranch by a greedy cattleman, their family is left destitute. As women alone they have few choices: marriage, lying on their backs for money, or holding a gun. For Margaret and Hattie the choice is simple. With their small makeshift family, the gang pulls off a series of heists across the West. Though the newspapers refuse to give the female gang credit, their exploits don't go unnoticed. Pinkertons are on their trail, a rival male gang is determined to destroy them, and secrets among the group threaten to tear them apart. Now, Margaret and Hattie must find a way to protect their family, finish one last job, and avoid the hangman's noose. "Readers who relish an unusual narrative structure will enjoy this unique take on the traditional western." -- Booklist

‘Heresy’ deals with the struggle for control of the Christian faith in the fourth century CE between Augustine and Pelagius, an Irish scholar, as seen through the eyes of Pelagius’s servant Arwel. Their quarrel is over free will and predestination, but there is plenty of action as the tale unfolds against the backdrop of the sack of Rome and the collapse of the western empire, not to mention the murder of the Alexandrian pagan philosopher Hypatia, etc, etc. Ultimately Pelagius won the intellectual battle but lost the political one. No historical facts were harmed in the making of this story.

Hiding the truth about her Jewish heritage, fiercely loyal Catholic Catherine LeVendeur hides close friend Astolabe, who has been falsely accused of murder as part of a plot to bring down his famous father and destabilize Christianity.

Some of the most portentous events in medieval history—the Cathar crusade, the persecution and mass burnings of heretics, the papal inquisition—fall between 1000 and 1250, when the Catholic Church confronted the threat of heresy with force. Moore’s narrative focuses on the motives and anxieties of elites who waged war on heresy for political gain.

Information about the first heresy is secreted out of Jerusalem after its fall in AD 70. It reaches the last great pagan philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria, and is smuggled out of Egypt by her slave-companion on the day of her murder. Centuries later, clues to the First Heresy are revealed in Ireland to a Norman youth and retired Templar Knight. Meanwhile, in Paris, a scholar of Persian descent, and connected to the Knights Templar, is drawn into the events that unfold. The First Heresy is so stunning that it could destroy the foundation of the Roman Church and the secular power-structures of Europe. It sets in motion a medieval hunt across France and Ireland as a small group, led by scholar, is closely pursued by the forces of the French King. They are confronted with the truth about the Christ and the nature of man, while the Order itself is attacked by the Iron King, convinced he is an agent of God. The First Heresy, the debut novel from financial commentator and TV presenter Eddie Hobbs, combines historical research with fiction and mysticism to create a unique, fast-paced thriller which will have you on the edge of your seat.

Heresy studies is a new interdisciplinary, supra-religious, and humanist field of study that focuses on borderlands of dogma, probes the intersections between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and explores the realms of dissent in religion, art, and literature. Free from confessional agendas and tolerant of both religious and non-religious perspectives, heresy studies fulfill an important gap in scholarly inquiry and artistic production. Divided into four parts, the volume explores intersections between heresy and modern literature, it discusses intricacies of medieval heresies, it analyzes issues of heresy in contemporary theology, and it demonstrates how heresy operates as an artistic stimulant. Rather than treating matters of heresy, blasphemy, unbelief, dissent, and non-conformism as subjects to be shunned or naively championed, the essays in this collection chart a middle course, energized by the dynamics of heterodoxy, dissent, and provocation, yet shining a critical light on both the challenges and the revelations of disruptive kinds of thinking and acting.

You don’t create beauty, you live it. Can infinite beauty and immortality be conquered by skill or divine knowledge alone? The young sculptor Maximillian Comnenius meets his Muse, a hallucination of the perfect female model he is ultimately enthralled by. Her occasional fading and unsatisfactory appearances compel him to strike a bargain – she will appear more vivid and ever closer to reality if and only if the sculptor creates six of the most perfect statues imaginable, standing for the different stages of Love. As the deal is agreed upon by both sides, the unusual onset of events takes place in both the city of Marckest and within the band Sagittarius, the members of which are Maximilian’s peers. The unfolding of beauty and reality itself is in the hands of both the beholder and the Creator. “A sophisticated novel that fully meets the criteria of our modernity.” “A novel that represents a turning point in the course of the new Macedonian prose.”