The Witch in the Well
Description
Winner of the Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery
Catherine LeVendeur is a creature of 12th century France whose life is a mirror of her times--but she is armed with a keen mind and lively curiosity.
When Catherine's grandfather sends for his family to tell them their well is going dry, Catherine is alarmed. The family's wealth depends on its status, and if the well goes dry, their castle will fall. Her grandfather seems wracked with a fear deeper than that, though--and there's a mysterious woman appearing at odd moments who may or may not be the family's ancestral ghost.
Catherine doesn't believe the magical legends her family has handed down, that they are the descendents of a knight of Charlemagne's and a faerie. She puts her faith and distrust in the human condition.
When bodies being appearing--not ghostly specters, but freshly-dead humans--Catherine knows she's right, and must uncover the secrets of the witch in the well...
More details
Person
Sharan Newman is a medieval historian and author. She took her Master's degree in Medieval Literature at Michigan State University and then did her doctoral work at the University of California at Santa Barbara in Medieval Studies, specializing in twelfth-century France. She is a member of the Medieval Academy and the Medieval Association of the Pacific.
Rather than teach, Newman chose to use her education to write novels set in the Middle Ages, including three Arthurian fantasies and more than half a dozen mysteries set in twelfth-century France, featuring Catherine LeVendeur, a one-time student of Heloise at the Paraclete; her husband, Edgar, an Anglo-Scot; and Solomon, a Jewish merchant of Paris. The books focus on the life of the bourgeoisie and minor nobility and also the uneasy relations between Christians and Jews at that time. They also incorporate events of the twelfth-century such as the Second Crusade and the rise of the Cathars.
The Catherine Levendeur mysteries have been nominated for many awards. Sharan won the Macavity Award for best first mystery for Death Comes As Epiphany, the Herodotus Award for best historical mystery for Cursed in the Blood, and The Witch in the Well won the Bruce Alexander award for best historical mystery.
Her mystery The Shanghai Tunnel is set in Portland in 1868.
Newman has also written non-fiction books, including The Real History Behind the Da Vince Code and The Real History Behind the Templars.
Newman lives on a mountainside in Oregon.