Tuesday, December 15, 2015

2015 Edition of The Dead Sea Codex is here!

The Dead Sea Codex is "born again!" (ahem).



It may take time for the older editions to disappear from Amazon.

The new Kindle edition can be found here. All the quotations marks around dialogue have been restored (as they were in the beginning, and ever shall be, amen!).

The new Paperback edition is here

Saturday, November 21, 2015

New Edition of The Dead Sea Codex coming out in December

The Dead Sea Codex is Book 1 in my Lisa Donahue Archaeological Mystery series. In some ways, it is my favorite book. Writing it took me straight back to the almost two years I spent living and studying in Israel in the 1970s. My adventures were nothing like Lisa's, but living in the Middle East was a turning point in my life. I fell in love with archaeology and spent my entire academic career in that field. The experience changed my perspective, influenced my politics, and got me interested in the world's greatest religions.

In this novel, Lisa and a former boyfriend stumble upon a scrap of an ancient codex that two groups desire because of its explosive contents. Dated to the first century AD, the codex details the beliefs of a female disciple of Jesus. The scholars want to find the entire codex and publish it; the conservative Christians want to destroy it.

After discovering that someone had altered the digital files of my original novel to remove all the quotation marks, I decided I really, really needed a new edition (and a new publisher). I am thrilled to be back with Wings ePress with a new, improved edition and an exciting new cover. Here it is:


Wings also published book 3 in the Lisa Donahue series, with another beautiful cover.


This small publisher has an excellent, hardworking staff. My experience this time around was wonderful, even better than the first time. Special thanks to Senior Editor Jeanne Smith, Artist Richard Stroud, Art Director Pat Evans, and Acting President Marilyn Kapp. 

Monday, June 15, 2015

Archaeology and Murder News June 2015

Below is my occasional newsletter, reinvented to coincide with the debut of Burnt Siena ...


My newest novel, Burnt Siena, comes out this week (on June 17) from Five Star/Cengage Learning. It begins a new series (The Flora Garibaldi Art History Mysteries). Flora is a young paintings conservator, recently trained in Florence, Italy, who moves to Siena to take a new job with a firm of Italian painters and conservators. Anticipating a dream job using her advanced skills, she is disappointed when her employers sideline her doing menial tasks like mixing gesso and applying gold foil to picture frames. Then, a colleague is murdered and her new job takes her into dangerous territory: forging paintings and smuggling antiquities.
The book comes out simultaneously in Kindle and hardcover.
More murder news: I am re-reading Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter for her terrific descriptions and wonderful plots. She’s best known for her Brother Cadfael mysteries, but did you know she had several pseudonyms and wrote over 50 books total?
Other news: I had a blast teaching a course on “Archaeology and the Bible” at our local Osher Lifelong Learning center this past semester. A hundred students, ages 50-90, kept me challenged with fascinating questions and showed far more engagement than most undergraduates. The most outrageous site we discussed was the double palace and lake (complete with island) built by Herod the Great at Herodion.
More archaeology news:
Wine-making, anyone? Discovery of ancient pressing floor in Israel by a teen-ager walking her dog!
When I teach archaeology, I point out the obvious: I don’t look at all like Indiana Jones. But this fictional character has changed the world view of archaeology. Check out this new exhibit put on by National Geographic.

And last but not least, mummy news: Researchers continue to make new discoveries about health of Egyptians in ancient times through CT scans and other techniques. But animal mummies also provide surprises: many of them were fakes.