One of the greatest forces for change in the modern world was the Reformation, the splitting of western Christian Europe into Catholics and Protestants. One of the greatest conflagrations of this change was the Thirty Years War, a disaster that lead to the deaths of around four to eight million people. Catholics, Protestants, and pagans alike. Writer A. R. Bender brings this historical moment to life in The Black Bow: A Story of the Thirty Years War, an adventure novel with romance that follows an unlikely band as they flee persecution across 17th-century Germany.
Readers are familiar now with the witch burning during the Reformation and Counter Reformation. But the syncretism of Catholic belief shows the durability of the pagan traditions of Europe, even under the extreme pressures of religious discipline. In The Black Bow, pagan beliefs and practices are shown in rich detail through the character Mara, a midwife who is captured early on by Klaus, a leader of the Catholic League. Held in the keep in Ulm, Mara’s rescue by the local hunter Erich sparks a chase through the war-torn countryside. This chase introduces us to a broad cast of historical characters and events, set in the forests and fields of Bavaria and the ancient Bingen Abbey.
A. R. Bender captures the authentic spiritual and physical struggle of the times. Our characters scurry between major battles, evading capture and death, like the rats that proliferate in the destroyed towns. The dark forests offer some protection against the Catholic League, but with wars come bandits and brigands too. For Erich and Mara to survive, they must believe in each other and their traditions.
Historical fiction is another grand tradition, Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819) being one of the earliest examples.
Since then, many works of historical fiction have become classics, like Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth (1989), which inspired A. R. Bender’s foray into the genre. Similar to Jean M. Auel’s more speculative Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), The Black Bow demonstrates pagan beliefs in the plot itself.
Having just finished the novel, I’m convinced that Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009) will become a classic, and A. R. Bender’s story likewise includes a broad cast with unique voices.
Of course, no historical fiction would be possible without research. A. R. Bender states “a concept of the story emerged” after reading Friedrich Schiller’s History of the Thirty Years War.
History is a broad field to play in. As I’ve written in other posts, I’ve edited a number of historical fiction novels, all of which I find compelling. I’m especially happy to see A. R. Bender’s novel in print and available in paperback and for Kindle download. If you’re seeking to be transported to a unique and important historical period filled with deadly conflict, with a chase through war-torn Europe and a budding romance, then you’ll enjoy The Black Bow: A Story of the Thirty Years War.