Readers who relish rich prose, psychological intensity, and attention to what life in the past felt like will be immersed in this historical narrative told through the eyes of two young women set on following their ambitions and their hearts. "The gossamer bridge of the feminine in my own life had twisted in these events, both from within and without," Joan laments early on, as the possibility of being exposed proves a continual source of suspense.
Andes pens a complex but rewarding novel alive with old world language, harrowing atrocities, and star-crossed lovers whose stray moments of intense romantic connection give them strength to face hostile outside forces. “Had God appeared before me in physical form, I would have plunged my sword as deep in Him as it would go,” Joan declares after one tragedy. That searing emotional urgency, plus themes of faith and identity, ties the timelines together as Andes’s compelling heroines face limited options and overwhelming passions.
Takeaway: Gorgeously told story of Pope Joan and, centuries later, Jewish lovers in the Third Reich
Comparable Titles: Donna Woolfolk Cross’s Pope Joan, Kelli Estes’s Today We Go Home.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
Published May 15, 2023
LAKE ZURICH, IL. A.P. Andes’ Uproar and Heresy, the second novel of his quartet of historical-thriller fiction, The Latecoming West, is set to be released on October 10, 2023.
The book will be available on Amazon as a paperback and an eBook, and distributed by IngramSpark to Barnes & Noble and elsewhere as a print on demand paperback and eBook. Successive titles in the groundbreaking series, Falling through the Roof of Hell and The Annihilating Hero, will follow.
BookLife praised Volume I, John the Angelic, saying: “Andes shines in the first volume of this ninth-century historical literary fiction quartet, The Latecoming West, based on the early medieval life of Pope Joan. . . History buffs—particularly those enamored of Pope Joan—will devour this impeccably researched and skillfully written tale.”
Uproar and Heresy continues Joan’s astounding story of ascent through the Church’s ranks disguised as a man, while the peril of her identity looms over every success. But the book also introduces the series’ other key storyline: the journey of Rahel Buchwald and Patek Mroz, two star-crossed Jews who meet in 1930s Berlin as Hitler is coming to power, charting their struggles as the new order draws them nearer apocalypse.
“This series is fueled by the sinister, timeless theme of consensus in human history that has strangled voices of truth to preserve the status quo of those in power,” Andes says. “Warriors of fierce originality and courage have challenged that narrative since the dawn of civilization, from Socrates to Pope Joan to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and beyond.”
