Catherine Levendeur Mysteries
4 primary works • 10 total works
Book 6
The young French scholar, Catherine LeVendeur, is rather pleased to see off her estranged younger sister, Agnes, through marriage to a German lord. Bitter about their religious differences, Agnes wants nothing to do with Catherine and happily sets off with her sizeable dowry and two knights in escort.
But soon one of the escorts returns with terrible news: Agnes' new husband appears to have been murdered, and Agnes is the prime suspect - accused of murder by poisoning, or worse, witchcraft.
In spite of their differences, Catherine believes in Agnes' innocence, and pledges to do everything she can to save her sister. But when Catherine and her family travel to Germany to begin investigating, amongst a dangerously volatile religious climate, it becomes clear that their long-dreamt-of peaceful life remains in the distant future - if they live to see it.
Book 7
Young ex-novice Catherine LeVendeur is an independent spirit, fiercely loyal to both her faith and her family. Though the two sometimes conflict, with terrible consequences, her life remains committed to preserving what - and who - she loves.
But Catherine's loyalty is sorely tested when she and her family return to their French home to discover a Knight Templar has been brutally murdered inside: someone is threatening to reveal her closely held secret about her family's Jewish roots. But Catherine never wavers in her convictions, as she knows it falls to her to discover who would kill a soldier of God and why her family would be targeted in such a horrendous fashion.
Book 9
Young Catherine LeVendeur and her nobleman husband Edgar rely heavily on her dearest cousin, Solomon, for his help in their successful trading business. But their relationship must remain fiercely secret. While Catherine's father was abducted as a child and raised a Catholic, the rest of his family are Jewish. The connection would spell ruin - and death - for Catherine's family.
When Solomon travels to Spain to make his fortune, he encounters his estranged father, a man who rejected his Jewish faith to become Brother James. When a fellow monk is murdered, James is convinced a conspiracy is at work, and turns to the son he abandoned for help. Solomon wants nothing to do with his father. But faced with his ancestry and the ties of blood, Solomon knows he must come to a decision about who he is - and where he really belongs.
Book 10
When Catherine LeVendeur's grandfather sends for his family to tell them their well is going dry, Catherine is alarmed. The family's wealth depends on its status, and if the well goes dry, their castle will fall. Her grandfather seems wracked with a fear deeper than that, though - something connected to the mysterious woman who appears at odd moments, who may or may not be the family's ancestral ghost.
Catherine doesn't believe in the magical legends her family has handed down over the years: that they are the descendants of a Charlemagne knight and a faerie. She puts her faith and distrust in the human condition. And when bodies begin appearing - not ghostly spectres, but the freshly dead kind - Catherine knows she is right. She must uncover the secrets of the witch in the well . . .
In 12th-century France, the power of the religious relic is unsurpassed. Suffused with enormous power, a dangerous and violent trade has grown up around them. Despite mourning for their first child, the young ex-novice Catherine LeVendeur and her English husband Edgar are drawn into this perilous world when Edgar agrees to pose as a craftsman in order to infiltrate one if the rings.
The future of Catherine's relatives is also at stake: Jews surviving on the tolerance of King Louis VII. Their fragile existence is shattered when a man is murdered, and a deeply important relic - the arm of Saint Aldhelm of England - is stolen.
A wealthy countess lies dying at the Convent of the Paraclete, brutally beaten by an unknown assailant. Despite entreaties, she is unwilling to name her killer. So the beautiful Catherine LeVendeur, the Paraclete's most learned young novice-scholar, vows to find out the identity of the woman's attacker.
When her beloved Edgar comes to lead her away from the convent to a life outside, Catherine is torn between her quest for justice and the pledge she has made him. Refusing to break any of her promises, Catherine knows that if she abandons her crusade for the truth, the killing will continue, and the convent she loves may be destroyed . . .
