Читать книгу Bright Dark Madonna - Elizabeth Cunningham - Страница 9

A note on reading this book Or this is not your mother’s Mary Magdalen

OR MAYBE SHE IS. I don’t know your mother. She could be as wild and wise as Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen, narrator of this story and of all The Maeve Chronicles. Be assured: you do not need to have read Magdalen Rising and The Passion of Mary Magdalen to enjoy Bright Dark Madonna. Together the novels tell Maeve’s life story, yet each novel is self-contained and they can be read in any order. In Bright Dark Madonna there are occasional quotations from the previous novels. They are defined by italics.

I do not want to reveal too much previous plot or to explain how Maeve manages to travel across seas, continents, and worlds. But if you are new to Maeve’s story, here are a few facts about her that it might be helpful to know:

MAEVE’S CURRICULUM VITAE

She was born on the Isle of Women in the Celtic Otherworld and raised by eight warrior-witch mothers.

She attended druid school where she studied to be a bard—until she got kicked out, which is to say exiled, for saving the life of a certain young foreign exchange student.

She was sold into prostitution in Rome and worked at a brothel named The Vine and Fig Tree.

She eventually founded her own holy whorehouse in Magdala, Galilee.

She is a healer with “the fire of the stars” in her hands.

She loved and loves Jesus from “before and beyond time in all the worlds.”

She never became his disciple—or anyone else’s for that matter. She is not disciple material.

She has a mouth on her.

She relishes a good anachronism.

She is telling her story to you. Now. In the twenty-first century.

How to read this book? First, close it. Get comfortable. Pour whatever you like to drink, whether it’s herbal tea or a shot of Irish whiskey. Loosen up. Listen to some music, preferably the blues. Dance, sing along. Let your hair down (if you have any; I don’t—the real reason I am a novelist, the vicarious thrill of writing about someone with long, red hair.) Kick your shoes off. When you’re ready, open the book again, take a deep breath, and dive in.

I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

~ Elizabeth Cunningham