Due out June 29, 2010

About the Book

Mozart’s Blood is historical fiction based on a real-life character, the opera singer Teresa Saporiti, who created the role of Donna Anna in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.  The story spans four centuries and takes place in half a dozen great opera houses.  It’s all about an abiding passion for music which even time and death cannot extinguish.

The cover art is by Jon Paul, and the jacket design is by Kristine Mills-Noble.

Reviews

Coming soon.

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Background and Other Notes of Interest

The magnificent singing actress Renee Fleming provided a model and a list of repertoire for my character.   Ms. Fleming, with whom I once had the great pleasure of working, is a magnificent Donna Anna.    Take a few moments to listen and watch:  \”Non mi dir\” from Don Giovanni, sung by Renee Fleming

This historical novel covers the musical periods of the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Classical, and the Romantic.  The very early scenes take place in Rome, where a brand new art form called “musical drama” was just being introduced.  For quick details on the birth of opera, visit John Howell’s very brief summary of opera history.

This is Mozart as Teresa Saporiti would have known him.  The most passionate Mozart devotees still mourn his untimely death, and long to hear the music he would have written.  The Requiem, which he was working on at the time of his passing, was completed by a student of his, Sussmeyer.  The contrast between the music of Mozart and the music of Sussmeyer is a painful reminder of what the world lost when it lost Mozart.  Listen to a bit of the sublime Requiem.

Bibliography

In addition to touring the Metropolitan Opera House and the historic La Scala Theater in Milan, the following resources were immensely valuable–and a whole lot of fun:

Mozart, a Biography, by Piero Melograni

Marrying Mozart, a delightful novel by Stephanie Cowell

The Inner Voice, by Renee Fleming

The Costume Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The listserve MozartForum and its helpful scholars

Disaster by the Bay, H. Paul Jeffers

The Great San Francisco Earthquake & Fire, Helen Hillyer Brown

Great Singers on Great Singing, Jerome Hines

Links

An unusual vintage video of San Francisco, 2006

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Book One: The Horsemistress Saga

About the Book

Airs Beneath the Moon is a story of the winged horses of Oc and the women and girls who fly them. The girls who bond with a winged horse spend six years at the Academy of the Air, training. Their bondmates are closer to them than any family member could be, and they devote their entire lives to them. But the son of the Duke of Oc, William, thinks men should also be able to fly, and he will go to any length to make that happen.

Author’s Comments

There is a mystical bond between women and horses, one that is about power, and freedom, and a deep love of beauty. Horses, though large and strong, are sensitive creatures, each with its own personality and its own character. In Airs Beneath the Moon and the books to follow, women experience the ultimate thrill of not only riding a powerful animal, but rising above the ground where no others can go. It’s wish fulfillment, or perhaps a dream realized.

Reviews

Booklist:
“Bishop enables us to visualize the horses in solo flight and complicated formations, scenes at the academy are utterly real, and the characters have dimension. In short, this is a thoroughly satisfying read, fortunately with enough loose ends to justify a sequel.”

—Sally Estes

Read the entire review here: Booklist review on Amazon.com

M & C, Glasgow, Scotland:
“This first in a trilogy about winged horses and the women who ride them does an admirable job of setting up an escalating power struggle. The main antagonist is the new Duke as he attempts to circumvent biology and time honored practices leaving the horsemistresses on the defensive. Strong character development, politics and magical horses all add up to what promises to be a lively and engaging trilogy.”

—M & C

More reviews can be found at: Girls Horse Club, Barnes & Noble SF Editor, BookLoon

And an interview is here: TeensReadToo.com

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Excerpts

Listen to an Audio sample:

Download

Airs Beneath the Moon

Beyond the barn’s single, unglazed window, the stars began to dissolve, one by one, drowning in the chill gray light of dawn. The cows huddled together, head to tail, for comfort and for warmth. The goats stood silent and uneasy in their night pen, listening to the little dun mare laboring in the box stall. It had gone on all night, Char and her mistress grunting and groaning together. Now, as the sky began to brighten, Char’s time had come at last.

Char pushed. Larkyn Hamley, boots braced in the wet straw, pulled. Birth fluids soaked her tabard and her tangled skirts, and filled the stall with an odor both acrid and sweet. Lark knew the smell to be the essence of coming life, of the force that made the crops grow and the moon wax and wane. It was also the scent of death, of the melting of one time into another. Larkyn Hamley was a girl of the soil and the seasons, and her blood surged with the power of the moment, the alchemy of life striving to be.

“Once again, Char,” she panted. Salty sweat dripped in her eyes, but she had no hand free to wipe it away. She tried to lift her shoulder to get teh worst of it, but a fresh spasm wracked Char’s body, and Lark set herself again to pull ont he foal’s slick fetlocks. “Lovely girl,” Lark said. “That’s my brave girl. Once again!”

The mare’s sides rippled with effort. Lark’s hands cramped, and she begged Kalla for strength, even though she, an Uplands farm girl, had no right to pray to the horse goddess. It was for Char, poor little Char, her foundling.

Lark knew nothing of horses except what the dun mare had taught her. Horses were rare in the Uplands, and there had never been one on Deeping Farm, nor in the village of Willakeep. Lark had stumbled upon Char standing ankle-deep in the icy waters of the Black River, her ribs standing out like the curved pickets of the haymow, and her hide, the color of smoke from the autumn chimneys, torn by brambles. Neither Lark nor her brothers knew then that Char was with foal, but now, just as sharp-toothed winter began to loosen its bite on the Uplands, she had come to term.

The foal lay widdershins, hind feet first. Lark had tried everything she knew to turn it, without success. Once it was on its way, there was nothing left but to see it through. She gasped for air, in rhythm with Char. She tugged, and Char groaned. The mare gave one last heave. There was a deep, rushing sound, and the foal’s body slid, limp and awkward, legs asprawl, to the matted straw.

A gray shroud, streaked with red, masked its nose and mouth. Lark ripped at the gelatinous stuff with her fingers, clearing the tiny muzzle. She bent, and blew fiercely into the foal’s nostrils. A shuddering breath rewarded her, and a little mewling cry. She cried out herself, exclaiming in wonder as she cradled the wet creature in her arms. His coat felt gluey and rough beneath her hands.

When she was certain his breathing was steady, she lifted her eyes. “Char, look!” she said softly. “Look at your little one!”

The mare always responded to Lark’s voice, had done so even on that very first day, when she was so weak she could barely walk. Lark had coaxed her, stumbling step by stumbling step, through the fields to the barn. But now, Char lay exhausted. Her ribs barely moved, and her black forelock tangled in her long eyelashes. Even as Lark watched, the little mare’s breathing slowed., and her dark eyes fixed on some point only she could see.

“Oh, no,” Lark whispered.

Lark was a country girl. She knew the look of death, from slaughtering days, from accidents, from her own mother’s illness. She understood the dimming of the light in the mare’s eyes, the rattle of her last breath, her sigh of release, the stare into nothingness.

Lark, little more than a child herself, hugged the motherless foal to her breast, and cried. She gave in to her grief and exhaustion and shock, and sobbed.

The foal began to mewl and wriggle in her arms, reminding her of the dawn chill. Her wet clothes were icy, and the foal, too, was wet and cold to the touch. She had to get him dry.

She had brought a pile of old towels to the barn with her when she saw that char’s time had drawn near. Now she plucked one from the stack and gently rubbed the foal’s head and neck. He struggled to his feet, leaning against her, long-legged, big-eyed, quaking with weakness. She steadied him with one hand, and reached along his withers and spine with the other to scour away the remnants of the birth sac.

The slow morning sun slanted through the window. Lark felt it on her cheeks. It would be gilding the frosty grasses in the north pasture, glittering on the fallow fields to the south, shining on the slate roof of the farmhouse, silvering the scraps of late snow. It brightened the stall so she could see that the colt was as black as the blackstone of the Uplands that gave the river its name.

She slid the towel down the foal’s ribs, and stopped. Something stayed ehr hand, some solid, living structure beneath the towel.

The foal made the little choked sound again, a sob of his own. With care, Lark pushed him away from her to see what it was that grew below his withers, behind his shoulders.

What she saw filled her with awe and dread.

Everyone knew that an animal such as this belonged to the Duke, and the duke alone. Oc was a tiny and beleaguered duchy, with scarce resources. Its desolate coastline lay open to the sea lanes, coveted by other duchies, by bigger principalities. Creatures such as this, Char’s foal, were Kalla’s special gifts. They were Oc’s most precious resource, the envy of every duke, prince, and king. To tamper with their bloodlines was to commit high treason. Had any of the Hamleys realized…

But of course they hadn’t. How could they? They could never have guessed that little Char carried such a marvel. That such a being would appear here, on Deeping Farm, was an event of such magnitude Lark could hardly comprehend it.

With trembling fingers, she caressed the colt’s slender head, and then held him close, her arms gentle around his fragile neck.

“By Zito’s ears, little one!” she breathed. “You have wings!”

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