Mission Statement
Rubythroat Press, L.L.C. is a new independent press dedicated to the publication of historical literary fiction with a special emphasis on an alternative view that shifts away from the traditional perspective of white male governance and wars. Instead, the series makes vivid the story of America through ethnically diverse women and children sharing activism against violence and on behalf of the indigent, the mentally afflicted, the politically dissident, and the otherwise historically disenfranchised.
The Series: Remembrance of Things that Never Happened
The Cave of Storms, Book I
by Patricia Weenolsen
The year is 1692. The place is Salem. After witnessing the hanging of her beloved sister on Salem’s Gallows Hill, fourteen-year-old Mary flees the witch hunters with her five-year-old brother, Ephraim, into the American wilderness. Trek with them to Katahdin in Maine where Ephraim escapes up the mountain to the Great God Pomola’s stronghold in the Cave of Storms. Fight beside the limping Soaring Eagle who, desperate for Mary’s love, throws stones for her to pick up in the Abenaki tradition of seduction, only to suffer her rejection, after which the flirtatious Hill Dancer captures his affections. Escape with them past bands of “child-chomping” Iroquois to the prayer village near Quebec, Canada, where the Jesuit Fathers try to convert them from Manitou’s ways to their own God’s. Tumultuous love, betrayal, treachery, poison, and miracles await them.
Daughter of the Morning Star, Book II
by Patricia Weenolsen
In 1703, Mary emerges from Abenaki Indian captivity and returns to Salem, where she gathers together a band of abused children. These include Mary’s niece, the endearing five-year-old Sophie, whom her mother, Letty, accuses of being a witch and locks up periodically without food or water. Letty also abuses pretty fifteen-year-old black ‘Chuba, Letty’s slave, whom Letty shoots for secretly feeding Sophie. Roaming the streets is Dorcas, the teen-aged distracted daughter of a hanged witch. And taking refuge in the Pest House are the plague-scarred artistic ten-year-old Abigail, and the inventive twelve-year-old Thaddeus, both cared for by Elihu, a hideously cratered hulk of a man who falls hopelessly in love with Mary. Her moral compass and spiritual knowledge guide her to rescue many victims of societal and individual injustice.
An American Children’s Crusade, Book III
by Patricia Weenolsen
In 1706, Mary and her little band of children settle in Boston’s Almshouse with the hulking, pest-disfigured Elihu secretly in love with her. As the novel progresses, each has a story to tell: James/Jamess, the berdache, falls in love with the castrato, Marco; Lydia, the Quaker Prophetess, discovers that she is the lost Abenaki Indian, Shell Bead; former slave ‘Chuba leaves with Lydia to seek out her family in Virginia; Abigail, the teen portrait limner, paints the beautiful Thomas for whose love she will pay dearly; Baby Friedrich, with water on the brain, teaches all by their need to care for him; and others such as Dorcas, the witch’s daughter, Emily of the blank mind, Little Miss Soot who claims to be a Persian princess, and Son, the ghost of Mary’s murdered boy, accompany them. As Mary guides them, she discovers her wisdom growing into universal truths with more and more revealed to her.
Gone-Away Mary, Book IV
by Patricia Weenolsen
Forthcoming 2014
Mindstalker, Stand-Alone Thriller
by Patricia Weenolsen
A Novel of Psychological Suspense
Five-year-old Robbie is kidnapped from the care of his ten-year-old sister, Becca, in 1985. He now lives with kindhearted Kenny and his brutal lover, Carl, who coerces the boy’s participation in pornographic films. To defend himself against Carl’s assaults, Robbie splits into various identities. They deal with the outside world, take the pain, and create a meaningful life through art, gradually replacing his lost family. Over the years, however, more ominous personalities emerge, stalking, torturing and killing in appropriately artful ways. Eventually, they attack the family and plan vengeance on Becca. Meanwhile, guilt-filled Becca has grown up to become a Seattle psychologist, counseling children who have lost siblings. When she discovers frightening signs of intrusion into her home and hospital office, her colleague-lover asks: Could she be doing this to herself?