Synopses & Reviews
K'Atsina is a dynamic recreation of a little-known epoch in American history, seen through the lives of the women, priests, and Indians whose struggles tamed a vast and wild land.
Augustin, born in the Àcoma pueblo of the Spanish province of New Mexico, is sent to Mexico City to study for the Jesuit priesthood. In the capital, in a time when the Inquisition has reached New Spain, Augustin's loyalties are torn between his adopted religion and that of his people. But he has an even more agonizing secret: he falls in love with Antonia Salvatierra, the daughter of an influential family.
Synopsis
Melisende was the oldest daughter of Baldwin of Jerusalem, a princess of the Franks and, since she had no brothers, heir to the Crusader Kingdom. The crown would go to the man who married her, and after to her son.
But Melisende was a strong woman; the law that forced her to marry instead of taking the crown in her own name was a thorn in her side. It was she who ruled the City and who juggled the politics of church and court. The knights of Jerusalem fought in her honor, many of the best sworn to her personal service. She would not submit easily to a husband's rule, nor for long.
About the Author
Lana Moeller Harrigan holds a Ph. D. in Romance Languages. A linguist in Portuguese and Spanish, she was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Lisbon and has lived and traveled extensively in Luso-Hispanic speaking countries. She is an expert on the history and culture of the Colonial Southwest and lectures frequently on those subjects. A member of Western Writers of America and Women Writing the West, Harrigan is the author of two historical novels,
Ácoma, A Novel of Conquest, and
K'atsina, A Novel of Rebellion, and is currently at work on the third novel of her trilogy on Spanish Colonial New Mexico. In addition to writing, Dr. Harrigan serves as a study leader for the Smithsonian Institution's tours to Spain, Portugal, and the US Southwest, lecturing on Iberian and Southwestern history, culture and literature.
Language was fundamental to Harrigan's career. Exposed for the first time to Spanish during a trip to Mexico at the age of ten, Harrigan determined at that time to study languages in college. Her interest in language and other cultures drew the author to New Mexico and ultimately led her to research and write the story of the Hispanic conquest of the Southwest. Harrigan's study of paleography along with her background in Spanish and Portuguese allows her to read the sixteenth and seventeenth century historical manuscripts in the original archaic Spanish as one part of the extensive research for her novels. Harrigan's frequent travels in the Iberian Peninsula as well as in Mexico and South America serve as another source for her research. Harrigan divides her time between her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Casa Dichosa, a large old house on the Sea of Cortez in San Carlos, Mexico, which she and her husband, and faithful dog, Gordita, have remodeled and where she holds writers' retreats.