08 Apr Jules Larimore Find Me in the Stars #HistoricalFiction #Huguenots #RenaissanceFiction #WomensFiction #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub @jules_larimore @cathiedunn

FEATURED AUTHOR: JULES LARIMORE

I‘m delighted to host Jules Larimore again as the featured author in The Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour being held between March 26th –  April 16th, 2024. Jules Larimore is the author of the Renaissance Historical Fiction / Women’s Fiction, Find Me in the Stars (Cévenoles Sagas novel – Book Two in the Huguenot Trilogy), released by Mystic Lore Books on March 20^th, 2024 (328 pages)

Below are highlights of Find Me in the Stars  Jules Larimore’s author bio, and her fascinating guest post about the 17th-century religious movements that influenced the characters in Find Me in the Stars.

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2024/02/blog-tour-find-me-in-the-stars-by-jules-larimore.html

HIGHLIGHTS: FIND ME IN THE STARS

Find Me in the Stars
(Cévenoles Sagas novel – Book Two of the Huguenot Trilogy)
By Jules Larimore

Blurb:

“Larimore’s ability to engulf a reader into a tale… is brilliantly done.”

5-star Highly Recommended Award of Excellence ~ Historical Fiction Company

Separated by miles, connected by the stars, two healers forge their destinies in a quest for a brighter tomorrow.

Inspired by a true story, this refugee’s tale of sacrifice, separation, and abiding love unfolds in the Cévennes Mountains of Languedoc, France, 1697. A sweeping adventure during the time of Louis XIV’s oppressive rule and persecutions, this compelling narrative follows the intertwined destinies of two remarkable protagonists, Amelia Auvrey, a mystic holy-woman healer, and Jehan BonDurant, an apothecary from a noble Huguenot family, in a riveting tale of enduring love, faith, and the search for light in the darkest of times.

Amelia and Jehan are fierce champions of tolerance and compassion in their cherished Cévenole homeland, a region plagued by renewed persecution of Huguenots. The escalated danger forces their paths to diverge, each embarking on their own dangerous journey toward survival and freedom. The Knights Hospitaller provide protection and refuge for Amelia and her ailing sage-femme grandmother, even as they come under suspicion of practicing witchcraft. And, to avoid entanglement in a brewing rebellion, Jehan joins a troupe of refugees who flee to the Swiss Cantons seeking sanctuary—a journey that challenges his faith and perseverance. Jehan arrives to find things are not as he expected; the Swiss have their own form of intolerance, and soon immigrants are no longer welcome. The utopian Eden he seeks remains elusive until he learns of a resettlement project in the New World.

During their time apart, Amelia and Jehan rely on a network of booksellers to smuggle secret letters to each other—until the letters mysteriously cease, casting doubt on their future together. Jehan is unclear if Amelia will commit to joining him, or if she will hold fast to her vow of celibacy and remain in the Cévennes. Seemingly ill-fated from the start, their love is tested to its limits as they are forced to navigate a world where uncertainty and fear threaten to eclipse their unwavering bond.

As a stand-alone sequel to the award-winning The Muse of Freedom, a bestseller in Renaissance Fiction, Find Me in the Stars is based on true events in the life of Jean Pierre Bondurant dit Cougoussac–an unforgettable adventure where love and light endure against all odds.

Buy Links:

This title will be available on #KindleUnlimited.

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/31B6PM

FEATURED AUTHOR: JULES LARIMORE

Jules Larimore is the author of emotive, literary-leaning historical fiction with a dose of magic, myth, and romance to bring to life hopeful human stories and inspire positive change. She is a member of France’s Splendid Centuries authors’ collaborative, a board member of the Historical Novel Society of Southern California, and lives primarily in Ojai with time spent around the U.S. and Europe gathering a rich repository of historical research in a continued search for authenticity.

Author Links:

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Pinterest     Book Bub     Amazon Author Page     Goodreads

GUEST POST: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR FIND ME IN THE STARS

BY JULES LARIMORE

Novels with a bit of romance and “magic” seem to attract more readers. So I decided early on to develop a fictional love interest for the Huguenot trilogy’s male protagonist, Jehan BonDurant, a character based on the real person, Jean Pierre Bondurant dit Cougoussac. I wanted someone Jehan would have something in common with, and since we know from the records that Jean Pierre was trained as an apothecary, making the female protagonist, Amelia Auvrey, a healer seemed like a good place to start. But I didn’t know, until I began to deep dive into some historical research, that she would be a free-spirited, mystic holy-woman healer.

Amelia began to take shape after reading about the Beguines, Christian laywomen who lived either in semi-monastic communities or alone beginning in the mid-12th century and were part of a larger movement that came to be identified as the Free Spirits. They devoted themselves to piety and prayer, good works, and the subsistence of their communities without taking formal religious vows or submitting to male authority. These women willingly embraced lives of simplicity, contemplation, and apostolic poverty. Celibacy was always understood as fundamental to religious life as long as they lived as Beguines, but they were free to leave their religious vocation at any time, unlike nuns.

“…theirs was a movement with no vows, rules, constitutions, or commitments… (they were women) who believed in freedom of worship and the possibility of a personal relationship with God… this ember of mysticism was not extinguished by the persecution (of a Beguine named Marguerite Porete who was burned at the stake for heresy), but continued to smolder in Germany, France, and Belgium until it finally burst into flame as the Protestant Reformation…” ~ Gael Stirler, “A Mystic Christian Sisterhood Without Vows” (August 2008)

As a “free spirit”, Amelia does not avow to any one religion but embraces them all. This inspires Jehan to seek his own spiritual path rather than letting it be dictated to him by Louis XIV in his royal edict for “one king, one law, one faith”.

At the beginning of Find Me in the Stars, Jehan flees France as a refugee in search of an “Eden” while Amelia remains under the protection of the Knights Hospitaller on Mont Lozère (in the Cévennes mountains of southern France) to tend to her aging sage-femme grandmother. Sage-femme, from French, translates into wise woman and was the title given to healers paid by local communities to work primarily as midwives. It is from her grandmother that Amelia learns ancient healing techniques that may be considered magic by many but were, in fact, commonly practiced in the Cévennes during that time.

“There is almost no village, even today, where we do not find one or more secret healers, (that’s the name we give them) sorcerers or diviners, with the reputation to cure all kinds of illnesses, even from a distance, by means of signs, dead ends or ridiculous formulas.” ~ Jules Barbot, “The Lozérien Peasant: Local Studies” (Ed. 1899)

“The Druidic cult must have laid deep roots in the hearts of the peoples of Mont Lozère because, in these solitary, deserted places, covered, here and there, with vast forests, everything seemed to favor this mysterious, symbolic religion…” ~ Bulletin de Lozère, 1864.

I also added a different sort of “magic” by incorporating theories from Lionel Laborie’s scholarly works on the fanaticism of the Reformed Huguenots of the Cévennes mountains during the late 17th century. His publications indicate that during their secret assemblies in the forests and caves, they would partake in spiced possets, bread contaminated with seigle ergoté (a fungus that grows on rye), and a secret white powder (probably a weak form of opium from the local poppies), that could have caused their “inspirés” to suffer what were, in reality, convulsions and hallucinations rather than divine inspiration.

I recently had a reviewer of Find Me in the Stars state that there are “magical elements” in this book that could have been completely omitted since it was not a main theme. Yet, as an author of historical fiction, I look to history to shape my stories, and these ancient healing practices, whether to cure an ague or to heal the soul, were very much a part of the history of the Cévenol people of southern France. Call it what you will… magic or medicine.

Instagram Handles: @juleslarimore @thecoffeepotbookclub