|
"Foran is mighty good ... [he] has
done a great job of reconstructing the rather cloistered atmosphere
of rural 19th-century Quebec. He also does a fine job of recreating
the tensions and movements involved in the 1838 rebellion ... This
one is definitely better than The Da Vinci Code."
— Globe and Mail
"A profound but iconoclastic examination
of Christian faith, religious fervour and the human psyche, with
illicit love mixed in as well, and it makes The Da Vinci Code
read like a Grade 3 primer. ... Gorgeous. Harrowing. Wise. I am
awestruck and envious. "
—Edmonton Journal
"Max Foran recreates all these periods with
authenticity ... a compelling read."
— See Magazine
"This is not your average historical thriller.
The story is spellbinding."
— Ottawa Citizen
Rome, 1221. On the death of Dominic Guzman, founder
of the Order of Dominican Friars, a list of three names is locked
away with the depositions attesting to Dominic’s beatification,
and a copy is sealed in an icon of the Virgin Mary that is eventually
carried to New France.
This list is the thread that binds the fates of
ordinary people caught up in the grand sweep of historical events.
The Madonna List traces the lives of two nineteenth-century
men across three continents, where each finds himself intertwined
with a woman who has been visited by the Virgin Mary.
Bernad Birous is an ambitious and arrogant young Genoan of the merchant class who desires to use the power of the Church to serve his worldly aims, and who comes to believe that he is the chosen of God. Martin Goyette is a young artist from the rural parishes of Lower Canada who becomes enmeshed in the doomed Lower Canada Rebellion of 1838.
Their very different lives are drawn together in a penal colony in New South Wales (Australia), where fortune, ambition, and faith determine their fates. A web of mystery, violence, love, betrayal, and tragedy finally leaves one man standing and one broken when the shattering secret of The Madonna List is revealed.
This book
is printed on ancient
forest-friendly paper.
|
