Brenda Rickman Vantrease Books In Order

The Illuminator

It is England, in the late fourteenth century, a time when the old feudal order is starting to crack, but the whim of a lord or the pleasure of a bishop still has the power to seal nearly anyone’s fate. The printing press has yet to be invented; books are rare and costly, painstakingly lettered and illuminated with exquisite paintings.

For Lady Kathryn of Blackingham Manor, a widow and mother trying desperately to safeguard her holdings without the dubious protection of her late husband, it is a time made both sweeter and more perilous by the arrival of a master illuminator called Finn. Caught between the King s taxes and the Church s tithes, Kathryn strikes a bargain with the local abbot: she will take Finn and his pretty young daughter into her household in exchange for the monastery s protection.

Finn is working not only on approved church texts, but secretly and dangerously on a forbidden English translation of the Bible. As the hesitant friendship between Kathryn and Finn grows into a passionate alliance, wonderful new storyteller Brenda Rickman Vantrease brings us a glorious novel of love, treachery, faith, and redemption on the eve of the Renaissance.

The Mercy Seller

In the fifteenth century, with religious intolerance spreading like wildfire across Europe, English born Anna Bookman and her grandfather, Finn, earn a living in Prague by illuminating precious books, including forbidden translations of the Bible. Finn subscribes to the heresy that people ought to be able to read the Word of God for themselves, without having to pay a priest for the privilege, but holding that belief is becoming more and more hazardous. When the authorities start burning books and slaughtering heretics including the man Anna was to marry Finn urges her to seek sanctuary in England, but her passage abroad will be anything but easy.
In London, Friar Gabriel dutifully obeys church doctrine by granting pardons…
for a small fee. But then he is sent undercover on a spying mission to France, where Anna has set up a temporary stall as a bookseller. Anna has no way of knowing that the wealthy young merchant frequenting her stall is actually a priest just as Gabriel does not know he has met the woman who will cause him to doubt his vows.
As Anna continues her journey to England, where the movement to stamp out heresy is growing ever fiercer, Brenda Rickman Vantrease brings us a richly imagined and immensely rewarding novel of love, faith, and dangerous secrets.

The Heretic’s Wife

From the bestselling author of The Illuminator comes a magnificent tale about the power of love and the perils of faith Tudor England is a perilous place for booksellers Kate Gough and her brother John, who sell forbidden translations of the Bible. Caught between warring factions English Catholics opposed to the Lutheran reformation, and Henry VIII’s growing impatience with the Pope s refusal to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn Kate embarks on a daring adventure that will lead her into a dangerous marriage and a web of intrigue that pits her against powerful enemies. From the king s lavish banquet halls to secret dungeons and the inner sanctums of Thomas More, Brenda Rickman Vantrease s glorious new novel illuminates the public pageantry and the private passions of men and women of conscience in treacherous times.