A Vision of Light - (Margaret of Ashbury) by Judith Merkle Riley (Paperback)

About the Book

Beautiful, twice-married Margaret was fated to be beaten and betrayed, taught rare arts of healing and love, and tried as a witch. But with courage and an open heart, she traversed a world overflowing with bitter sorrow and bawdy laughter to find a haven of love, safety, and triumphant joy in 14th-century England.

Book Synopsis

The first book in the series, this bestselling novel introduces Margaret of Ashbury, a fourteenth-century Englishwoman with mystical abilities

Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in fourteenth-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret's scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task.

As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness. Married off at the age of fourteen to a merchant reputed to be the Devil himself, Margaret was left for dead during the Black Plague. Incredibly, she survived, was apprenticed to an herbalist, and became a midwife. But most astonishing of all, Margaret has experienced a Mystic Union--a Vision of Light that endows her with the miraculous gift of healing. Because of this ability, Margaret has become suddenly different--to her tradition-bound parents, to the bishop's court that tries her for heresy, and ultimately to the man who falls in love with her.

Review Quotes

"Rich with the ambiance and flavor of the Middle Ages . . . a fourteenth-century story told with a twentieth-century sensibility." --The New York Times Book Review

"Fascinating and factual . . . if all chronicles of earthly life were recorded with such drama, flair, and wit, the world would be filled with history majors." --Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Judith Merkle Riley is a professor of political science and has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.