What’s it about?
Accomplished neurosurgeon Beatrice Trovato knows that her deep empathy for her patients is beginning to hinder her work. When her beloved brother, a historian, passes away suddenly, she travels to the Tuscan city of Siena to settle his estate. Overworked and in need of a respite, she welcomes the unexpected trip as she wrestles with her grief. As she delves into her brother’s affairs and his unfinished research, she discovers evidence of a 650-year-old conspiracy to destroy Siena.
While attempting to prove her brother’s theory, she unearths the journal and paintings of a 14th-century fresco painter named Gabriele Accorsi, the man at the heart of the plot. In one of Accorsi’s paintings, she discovers a woman who bears a startling resemblance to herself. The journal works as a portal to the past and Beatrice is transported to the year 1347. She awakens in a Siena unfamiliar to her—a city that will soon be devastated by the Black Plague.
In Siena, Beatrice meets Accorsi and falls in love—not only with the painter but with the cadence of medieval life itself. At the same time, she and Gabriele find themselves pitted against a Florentine conspiracy bent on destroying the city. As the Plague and the ruthless men navigating its deadly path threaten Siena, Beatrice must decide in which century she belongs.
Continue reading “Blog Tour: The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer”
For National Poetry Month, Ed and I interviewed Ashland poet Amy MacLennan. Her first full-length collection The Body, A Tree was published earlier this year by MoonPath Press. Her work has been published in Cimarron Review, Cloudbank, Connotation Press, Folio, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Linebreak, Painted Bride Quarterly, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet’s Market, Rattle, River Styx, South Dakota Review, Spillway, The Pedestal Magazine, Windfall, and Wisconsin Review.
