May 2018 Book of the Month
Kingdom of Women
by Rosalie Morales Kearns
Published by: Jaded Ibis Press, LLC
ISBN-10: 1937543420
ISBN-13: 978-1937543426
SYNOPSIS:
In a slightly alternate near-future, women are forming vigilante groups to wreak vengeance on rapists, child abusers, and murderers of women. Averil Parnell, a female Catholic priest, faces a dilemma: per the Golden Rule she should advise forgiveness, but as the lone survivor of an infamous massacre of women seminarians, she understands their anger.
Her life becomes more complicated when she embarks on an obsessive affair with a younger man and grapples with disturbing religious visions.
She had wanted to be a scholar, before the trauma of the massacre. Later, all she wanted was a quiet life as a parish priest. But now she finds she has become a mystic, and a central figure in the social upheaval that’s gathering momentum all over the world.
Kingdom of Women spans decades and delves into multiple points of view, not only highlighting the personal evolution of a complex, troubled individual but also exploring larger themes like the ethical implications of the use of violence against oppression, and the tension between justice and mercy, revenge and forgiveness.
Author webpage: https://rosaliemoraleskearns.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @RMoralesKearns
BIO:
Rosalie Morales Kearns, a writer of Puerto Rican and Pennsylvania Dutch descent, is the founder of Shade Mountain Press, a new small press whose focus is literary fiction by women. Her novel KINGDOM OF WOMEN, about a female Roman Catholic priest, is forthcoming from Jaded Ibis Press (December 1, 2017). Kearns is also the editor of the short-story anthology THE FEMALE COMPLAINT: TALES OF UNRULY WOMEN (Shade Mountain, 2015), praised by Kirkus Reviews as a “vital contribution to contemporary literature”; and the author of the magic-realist short story collection VIRGINS & TRICKSTERS (Aqueous, 2012). One of the stories in the collection earned a Special Mention in the 2013 Pushcart Prize volume. Her website is at http://rosaliemoraleskearns.wordpress.com/
