Coal Eyes, Raven Hair is a collection of three stories across the ages—Jerusalem, Vienna and Sydney—which chronicles the roles of women, and expectations of youth, beauty and fertility.
The first novel, Jerusalem, takes place in 33 CE. Shy seamstress Mariamne is destined for spinsterhood in her parents’ home, until she helps a Roman slave to escape.
The book was inspired by Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series.
A sneak peek at the first novel, Jerusalem...
I have been here for years, decades perhaps. Lichens have invaded the porous rock of my husband’s tombstone. All is quiet. I think back on everything that came to pass since Jerusalem, when I was Mariamne bat Joseph - Mariamne, daughter of Joseph. My parents didn’t call me by that name. I was simply “Mariamne,” the afterthought, the dispensable one to whom paternity was not attached. And yet I’d have those times again, even when they sold me. But my enemy cursed me. May she rot in the shadow world. So here I wait, trapped between this world and the next, with only foxes, kestrels and deer for company...