Introduction

It is the story of two women, their guardian angels, and a mysterious, subversive book … a book that outrages some, inspires others, and launches the Protestant Reformation. The devout Anne Boleyn catches the eye of a powerful king and uses her influence to secretly change history forever. Meanwhile, Rose, a broken, suicidal woman of the streets, is moved to seek God when she witnesses Thomas More’s public displays of Christian charity, ignorant of his secret life spent eradicating the same book, persecuting anyone who dares read it. Historic figures come alive in this thrilling story of heroes and villains, saints and sinners, angels and mortals … and the sacred book that will inspire you anew.

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

What people are saying about …

In the Shadow of Lions

“Ginger Garrett has brilliantly blended fact and fiction, faith, and

fallacy to create a saga so real that I hung on every word. I will never

again open my Bible without gratitude for the women of faith who

dared to defy the deceived that God’s Word might be read by all. In

the Shadow of Lions is truly a masterpiece!”

Kathy Herman, author of the Phantom

Hollow series and Sophie Trace Trilogy

“Garrett unveils history’s secrets to tell you the tale you’ve never heard

about the greatest story ever told. Exceptional in every way, with

characters that will haunt your dreams long after you’ve turned the

last page. Don’t miss it!”

Siri Mitchell, author of A Constant Heart

“Angels, demons, life and death, a religion gone mad, love, murder,

the power of a crazed king, and three women’s lives, two in the past

and one in the present, all consumed by one mighty book that set the

world aflame, sparking the Reformation. This is one of those stories

that will keep you captivated to the very last page and one you’ll be

thinking about long after you’re done reading it.”

M. L. Tyndall, author of the award-winning

Legacy of the King’s Pirates series

“Far more than just a beautiful cover, In the Shadow of Lions drew

me into the life of Anne Boleyn and presented a side to this tragic

historical figure I had never considered. Elegantly, and with no small

amount of intrigue, Ginger Garrett posits that history may have cast

Anne into an undeserved light, which reminds the reader that it is

not for us to judge others and their motivations. Enthusiastically

recommended!”

Tamara Leigh, best-selling author of

Splitting Harriet and Faking Grace

“An imaginative and evocative tale of Anne Boleyn’s battle for a king’s

heart and her soul’s salvation, In the Shadow of Lions etches the eternal

struggle between church and state in swift, vivid prose.”

India Edghill, author of Queenmaker and Wisdom’s Daughter

“In this beautifully written novel, Ginger Garrett honors the strength

and insight of two English women willing to die for their faith. In

the Shadow of Lions takes readers on a remarkable journey back to the

sixteenth century and shows the incredible power of a book shared in

secret by women across London.”

Melanie Dobson, author of The Black Cloister and Going for Broke

In the Shadow of Lions

Ginger Garrett

IN THE SHADOW OF LIONS

Published by David C. Cook

4050 Lee Vance View

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C. Cook Distribution Canada

55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

David C. Cook and the graphic circle C logo

are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s

imagination, although some are based on real-life events and people.

With the exception of Job 42 and Job 31, Scripture quotations are taken from

Tyndale’s New Testament, translated by William Tyndale, a modern-spelling edition

of the 1534 translation by David Daniell © 1989, Yale University.

Job 42 Scripture quotation is taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © Eugene H. Peterson 1993,

1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Job 31 Scripture quotation is taken from King James Version of the Bible. (Public domain.)

LCCN 2008928480

ISBN 978-0-7814-4887-1

© 2008 Ginger Garrett

Ginger Garrett is represented by MacGregor Literary.

Visit Ginger at her Web site: www.GingerGarrett.com

Author photo © Don Sparks Photography

The Team: Andrea Christian, Ramona Tucker, Amy Kiechlin, Jaci Schneider, and Karen Athen

Cover Design: John Hamilton Design

Cover Photo: © HarperPoint

Interior Design: The Visual Republic, Alexis Goodman

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition 2008

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

052008

15

Chapter One

Tomorrow, someone else will die in my bed.

Someone died in it last month, which is how it came to be called

mine.

The infernal clock moved confidently toward 1 a.m., and I turned

my head to look at the window. The window of this room is a miserly

gesture from the contractors, producing more fog than visage. I watched

the gold orbs—the lamps on the lawn of the hospice sputtering off and

on in the darkness—that dotted the fogged glass.

That was the last moment I lived as an iver, one whose eyes are veiled.

One orb did not sputter but moved, gliding between the others,

moving closer to the window, growing larger and brighter until the

light consumed the entire view. I winced from the searing glare and

tried to shield my eyes, but the IV line pulled taut. Wrestling with the

line to get some slack, I saw the next movement out of the corner of my

eye. I bit down hard on my tongue, my body jerking in reflex, and felt

the warm blood run back to my throat.

16 In the Shadow of Lions

Outside, a hand wiped the fog away from the glass, and I watched

the water beads running down the inside of my window. There was no

searing light, only this mammoth hand with deep creases in the palms

wiping down the window until we both could see each other. A man’s

face was against the glass, but no breath fogged his vision. He was a

giant, grim man, with an ring in one ear and dark glasses, and he was

staring in at me. Even through the morphine, fear snaked along my

arms, biting into my stomach, constricting around my throat. I tried to

scream, but I could only gulp air and heave little gasps. His expression

did not change as he lifted his hands, curling them into fists. I flinched

at the last moment, thinking him to be Death, expecting to receive the

blow and die.

Then I grew suddenly warm, like the feeling you get stepping from

an old, dark city library into the busy street and a warm spring sun.

Death didn’t even hurt, I rejoiced. I could slip into it like I slipped

onto that street, eyes down, my thoughts my own, and simply turn a

corner and be gone. I lifted my fingers to beckon him. Yes, I thought.

I saw the beautiful Rolex on my birdlike wrist and saw that it had

stopped. It is time.

When I looked back up, he was beside me, staring down, not

speaking. I wasn’t dead. His frame was monstrously large, hitting what

must be seven feet tall, with a width of muscle strapped across him that

was inhuman. As he watched me, his chest didn’t move, and his nostrils

didn’t flare, but heat and warm breath radiated from him. When he laid

his hands across my eyes, I was too scared to move my head away. His

palms covered most of my face, and a sharp buzzing drilled into every

pore. He began to move his hands elsewhere, touching and bringing to

life every splintered inch of my body. When he got to the cancer, with

Ginger Garrett 17

one swollen lymph node visible even through my stained blue gown,

he rested his hands there until the swelling sighed, and he swept it away

with his hand.

“Wait!” I screamed.

I didn’t want to live. I hadn’t known that was going to be an option.

I deserved to be damned. To return to my life was too much to ask of

me. I was finished.

“You’ll still be dead by morning,” he reassured me. His voice was

deep and clean, no telltale dialect or inflection. Taking off his glasses,

I saw he had enormous gold eyes, with a black pinhole in the center

that stayed round and cold. There was no white in them at all, and

they were rimmed all the way around the outside with black. I stared at

them, trying to remember where I had seen eyes like this. It had been

years ago, this much I remembered.

I had to shake myself back to the present moment. Clearly, morphine

was not setting well with me tonight. I wanted to die in peace.

That’s what I paid these extravagant sums for. My hand moved to the

nurses’ call button. Mariskka was just down the hall, waiting for her

moment to steal my watch. I knew she’d come running.

He grabbed my hand, and the shock seared like a hot iron. Crying

out, I shook him off and clutched my hand between my breasts, doing

my best to sit up with my atrophied stomach muscles and tangled IV.

He leaned in. “I have something for you.”

“What?”

He leaned in closer. “A second chance.”

Second chances were not my forte. As the most celebrated editor in

New York City, I had made a killing. I loved the words that trembling

writers slid across my desk, those little black flecks that could destroy

18 In the Shadow of Lions

their life’s dream or launch a career. I bled red ink over every page,

slashing words, cutting lines. No one understood how beautiful words

were to me, why I tormented the best writers, always pushing them to

bring me more. The crueler I was to the best of them, the more they

loved me, like flagellants worshipping me as the master of their order.

Only at the end, lying here facing my own death, did I understand

why. They embraced the pain, thinking it birthed something greater

than themselves. I saw how pitifully wrong they were. There was only

pain. This is why I was ready to die. When you finish the last chapter

and close the book, there is nothing but pain. It would have been better

never to have written. Words betrayed me. And for that, I betrayed the

best writer of them all.

“Burn any manuscripts that arrive for me,” I had ordered my nurse,

Marisska. “Tell them I’m already dead. Tell them anything.”

“I’ll let you write the truth,” the man whispered. I focused on him

again.

“I’m not a writer,” I replied. My fear tumbled down into the dark

place of my secrets.

“No, you’re not,” he answered. “But you coveted those best sellers,

didn’t you? You knew you could do better. This is your second

chance.”

It caught my attention. “How?”

“I will dictate my story to you,” he said. “Then you’ll die.”

Taking dictation? My mouth fell open. “I’m in hell, aren’t I?”

He tilted his head. “Not yet.”

I pushed away from the pillows and grabbed him. Blisters sprang

up on my palms and in between my fingers, but I gritted my teeth and

spat out my words. “Who are you?”

Ginger Garrett 19

“The first writer, the Scribe. My books lie open before the Throne

and someday will be the only witness of your people and their time in

this world. The stories are forgotten here, and the Day draws close. I

will tell you one of my stories. You will record it.”

“Why me?”

“I like your work.”

I started laughing, the first time I had laughed since I had been

brought to this wing of the hospice, where the dying are readied for

death, their papers ordered and discreet pamphlets on “end-of-life

options” left by quiet-soled salesmen. I laughed until I was winded. He

rested his hand on my chest, and I caught my breath as he spoke.

“Let’s go find Marisska.”

Ginger Garrett 309

The door burst open, and I heard the nails moving across the floor,

devouring whatever was left in my body, screaming in fury that the

spirit-marrow was stolen from them. They could still taste it. I pressed

my face into Aryeh’s chest, breathing in the warm fragrance of peace.

I saw the book close.

My story was ended.

C

Scion Publishing

New York, New York

“Amazing, really.”

He poured a brandy from a crystal decanter. Mariskka loved that;

she had only seen it in the movies. He was a classy man, she could

tell.

The woman at his right nodded vigorously. She did that a lot.

“My imagination could run away with me on those night shifts.”

Mariskka giggled.

“We’ve already had one preempt for the movie rights. This is going

to do very well,” the woman said.

“Yes, Mariskka,” he said, cradling the glass as he walked it to her.

He handed it to her and she took a little sip, careful not to breathe in

the fumes. She usually drank beer.

“I’ve never met a first-time novelist who created such a rich, fascinating

story. You’re going to be very famous, and very rich. How does

that feel?”

310 In the Shadow of Lions

She smiled and shrugged, remembering how she used to charm her

teachers in school, remembering how none of them ever caught on. “I

can’t take credit for the book. It’s a gift from God.”

She set the glass down on the table between them, the table littered

with papers she had signed. The early reviews of the book had

been raving and plentiful. Marisska saw how the Rolex sparkled on her

tanned wrist.

When the woman stared at it, Mariskka realized she was lusting for

it. She had never caused envy before. It felt wonderful.

“A little something to celebrate your first book?” the woman

asked.

“Oh.” Mariskka smiled. “Let’s just say … I couldn’t resist.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Are there any true villains in this story? Sir Thomas burned
Christians alive, but believed he was saving the world from
heresy. Henry cast Catherine aside and beheaded Anne, but he
was trying to give England an heir to the throne and prevent a
civil war. Good people can do bad things in the name of God.
How are we to judge between good and evil?

2. What were you taught in school about the Reformation? Did
you have a low opinion of Anne Boleyn and a high opinion of
Thomas More? Who controls history, and how does this affect
our judgment?

3. Not everyone is pleased to think there may be supernatural
creatures walking with us. How does it make you feel?

4. Angels are eternal beings. They have seen the women of your
family line for thousands of years. If the Scribe appeared to you
tonight and gave you one chance to see a woman from your
past, what woman-or what time period-would you most
like to see?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Information Pge
»	author's website

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.

Member Reviews

There are no user reviews at this time.
Rate this book