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Jess Wells is the author of 6 novels and 5 books of short stories, including:
Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar. In 1865 two extraordinary women establish a raucous trading post for cast-off women, but their mirth is challenged by a greedy mayor and a murderous forger. Reviewers are calling it “exquisitely written.” Mirador Publishing, 2021
Straight Uphill: A Tale of Love and Chocolate. In a hilltop Italian village, five generations of women confectioners work the improbable magic of love and chocolate. Can a brokenhearted American tourist fight the ghosts of her past to find a new life? Can a courageous mother save the village in the midst of war; and a renegade daughter redefine familial love? Could unlikely couples find each other despite their differences? If an abandoned widow navigates a shifting sense of purpose, will the legacy of chocolatiers take a new turn? Published 2020 by Cortero/Fireship Press.
The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake is an audio book of short stories. Love, loss, irony and humor abound in the lives of eight families living around Loon Lake, a shallow fishing spot in Northern Michigan. Whether it’s the story of a young dreamer and a bully, a man looking forward to retirement and the family that stands in his way; a teacher facing ethical choices, or a family coping with disaster, these stories delight. Wells’ “use of language is like music,” critics says, while others call her writing “a rich and varied drug,” and these stories convey “a real sense of the contradiction and the ambivalence that goes on within the family circle…through writing that has a lyrical style.” Listen to the author read an excerpt here!
A Slender Tether explores ambition, desire, disillusionment and the struggle to belong, set in France in the 1300s. Amid the turbulent weather of Europe's Little Ice Age, "A Slender Tether" offers three compelling tales of self-discovery, woven into a rich tapestry of 14th century France. Christine de Pizan, daughter of a disgraced court physician and astrologer, grapples with her ambition to be the first woman writer in France. A doctor finds an unusual way to cope with the death of his wife. And opportunity alternates with disasters in the lives of four commoners, yoked by necessity: a paper-maker struggling to keep his business, a falconer with a mysterious past, a merchant's daughter frantic to avoid an arranged marriage, and a down-on-his-luck musician with a broken guitar and the voice of an angel. Critics have said that "Wells has artfully captured with economy and delicacy a time in history that comes across beautifully in this well-written and researched work." -- Historical Novels Review
The Mandrake Broom dramatizes the fight to save medical knowledge during the witch-burning times in Europe 1465-1540. Luccia Alimenti, daughter of a medical professor at the University of Salerno, Italy, is destined to carry ancient texts and herbal lore into the dangerous and ground-breaking future, while Theo Paracelsus, father of modern chemistry but a eunuch and addict, works with Luccia to forge a bridge between the new and old medicines. The Mandrake Broom involves the tension between visibility and invisibility, between internal strength and external powerlessness, and the continually fluid interplay of those factors, while it takes the reader through persecution and plague, love and joy, and the struggle for unity.
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