Sale announcement: my historical fantasy short story “The Empty Throne” will appear in The Sunday Morning Transport!
Lea would never lower her head like the other refugees. She hadn’t bowed before her father’s summonings despite all the threats and promises of Heaven, and she wasn’t about to start for earthly tyrants.
This is a story of Jewish myth and magic in the aftermath of the failed 1848 Hungarian Revolution. In every generation, we live in a world where the causes of justice and freedom face setback after setback, despite all the promises of Heaven. Yet still we live, and still we fight, and sometimes we manage to find reason for faith; no matter who stands on our side, or against it.
This story has quite a history to it. I first drafted “The Empty Throne” in 2015, and it collected a historic 56 submissions along the way. But I never stopped loving and revising it, and in spring of 2023 I got it into the shape it needed to find an amazing home. For all you writers out there: some stories are worth believing in, no matter how many times you have to help them back up onto their feet.
Watch this space for a deep dive into this story’s background and research when it emerges sometime in 2024!