Biography
Melodie Winawer is the author of The Scribe of Siena, which has been translated into German, Czech, Polish, and Norwegian to critical acclaim. Melodie is also a contributor to We All Fall Down: Stories of Plague and Resilience, an anthology of short stories by nine historical fiction writers. She is currently working on her third book, a dual-timeline novel set in modern and ancient Minoan Crete. A physician-scientist and associate professor of neurology at Columbia University, Melodie has published more than seventy-five scientific articles. To find the energy to write, she relies on unflagging enthusiasm and green tea. Melodie lives with her spouse and their three children in Woodstock, Vermont.
Anticipation
Helen, a research scientist living in New York with her nine-year-old son, Alexander, copes with single parenthood after her husband’s death. Alexander is obsessed with Greek mythology and convinces his mom to vacation in Greece. There, Helen and Alexander stumble upon the ruined ancient city of Mystras, where they are drawn to their mysterious tour guide, Elias, the sole inhabitant living on the city’s edges…both physically and temporally.
Elias is older than he appears, promised by his mother at his birth in 1237 to serve Mystras in exchange for his survival. But Elias has an enemy: Pierre Lusignan, the last descendant of a centuries-old noble family, on the hunt for Elias, whom prophecy hints is the source of the cure for the family’s inherited disease. That disease also happens to be the primary subject of Helen’s research, which puts her dangerously in Lusignan’s sights. With the enemy on their heels, and 800 years and the threat of an inherited disease separating them, Helen and Elias struggle to navigate their connection and save the city they love.