The Catholic Writers Guild

This month, the Catholic Writers’ Guild is touring G.M. Baker’s book, “The Wistful and the Good.” It is a CWG Seal of Approval recipient! The mighty are undone by pride, the bold by folly, and the good by wistfulness.

Summary:

Elswyth’s mother was a slave, but her father is a thegn, and Drefan, the man she is to marry, is an ealdorman’s son. But though Elswyth is content with the match, and waits only for Drefan to notice that she has come to womanhood, still she finds herself gazing seaward, full of wistful longing.

From the sea come Norse traders, bringing wealth, friendship, and tales of distant lands. But in this year of grace 793, the sea has brought a great Viking raid that has devastated the rich monastery of Lindisfarne. Norse are suddenly not welcome in Northumbria, and when Elswyth spots a Norse ship approaching the beach in her village of Twyford, her father fears a Viking raid.

But the ship brings trouble of a different kind. Leif has visited Twyford many times as a boy, accompanying his father on his voyages. But now he returns in command of his father’s ship and desperate to raise his father’s ransom by selling a cargo of Christian holy books. Elswyth is fascinated by the books and the pictures they contain of warm and distant lands.

But when Drefan arrives, investigating reports of the sighting of a Norse ship, Elswyth must try to keep the peace between Drefan and Leif, and tame the wistfulness of her restless heart.

Excerpt:

“Who are Ælfflæd and Cuthbert and Agnes? I thought you only had one god, the one you call Christ.”

“Not gods, silly, saints.”

“What is a saint, then? Are they like an elf or a dwarf or a troll?”

“No, no. Oh, how can I explain it? A hero, I suppose. Only a holy hero. Ælfflæd and Cuthbert are our own saints—Northumbrian saints, I mean—so they are our special patrons and they look after us.”

“And Agnes?”

“Oh, well, all girls pray to Saint Agnes.”

“But why?”

Elswyth pursed her lips and flushed a little. “She is the patron of virgins,” she said.

“A god of virgins?” Leif said. “This is very strange to me. We have Freyr, who is goddess of fertility. Women sacrifice to her to get children. But a goddess of virginity is strange indeed, for every people has need of fertility and increase.”

“Well, if you say the right prayers on her feast day, Saint Agnes will help you find a husband.”

“That is good service, I suppose. But your husband was found for you long ago. Why do you still pray to her then?”

“I don’t know. I like her, I think. She was a girl like me. And she was a martyr— they tried to make her a whore, but she refused and they killed her.”

“You have strange heroes.”

Website: https://gmbaker.net
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmbaker/
Twitter: @mbakeranalecta

Bio:

G. M. Baker is trying to revive the serious popular novel, the kind of story that finds the truth of the human condition in action, adventure, romance, and even magic. He writes the newsletter, Stories All the Way Down and is the author of the historical novel series Cuthbert’s People — The Wistful and the Good, St. Agnes and the Selkie, The Needle of Avocation — and the literary fairy-tale Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight.

Buy Link:

http://mybook.to/thewistfulandthegood

Tweet:

Elswyth must choose between land and sea, between Christ and Odin, between a good man and a better, between virtue and wistfulness. http://mybook.to/thewistfulandthegood