The Catholic Book Club discussion

1. Use this question to share your thoughts and comments that arise while reading the novel, "along the way." Or to discuss topics not raised by other questions.

Certainly the situation described by Fiorella de Maria was Real and existed really curiously was United State which finished with the berberian pirates in the 19th century. It is an unconvenient truth but unfortunatelly the muslims slavized more people than the european countries. The war against Sudan and the Madhi with the brave resistance of Gordon is for the slavery.

It is really curious this is the third novel about Malta that i have read "Angels in iron" by Nicholas C. Prata and "Ironfire" by David W. Ball was about the siege of Malta. In the club the siege was to sumarize in the catholic book novel discussion's "The Last crusader" by Louis de Wohl and it was described briefly in the novel about John of Austria written by the hungarian writer Laszlo Passuth.

Recently i have bought a novel of Mrs. Fiorella de Maria "This thing of Darkness" cowritten by his friend C.V. Turley i will read when i return of Valladolid nowadays i continue to the Village.

Do not you say before but a lot of pirates who appears in this novel were christians renegado. Dragut Reis was from Calabria and the fearsome jannissaries were poor banished children employed against the christians a lot of them from Albania.

Absolutely. Betrayal looms large over the story because it was everywhere. It was thanks to renegades that the Barbary pirates were able to navigate the Atlantic and sack the Irish/English coast. Warda's most dangerous enemies are former Christians.

I said in other part of the discussion that Spain had to expell the moorishses of Spain in (1609) because they were in touched with the turkishses. One of the novels of the historian Bartolome Benassar https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... told the experiences of the french renegade that at finally he came back to the catholic religion. For coming back for the catholic religion is necessary to confess to the inquisition they are not very hard in the guilties. They were very comprenhensive.

Other particular case is "The Wanderer" written by one of my favorite writers the finnish writer Mika Waltari
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... where the main character Mikael Karvajalka became a renegado although he refused to circumcise for this reason he did not become an authentic renegade. It is very interesting the descriptions of the courtship of Soliman the magnificent. The famous Roxelan or Jurrem were from Poland they were traficking with slavic personas since the beggining of middle ages. One of the sadest thing that i read was when the tartarian Azya kidnaped the polish woman Zosia and he gave to Topkapi this people did not come back ever. The opposite case we have in Don Quixote the muslim woman fallen in love the prisoner inspired in the own Miguel de Cervantes who was a prisoner in Argel.

Fonch wrote: "Recently i have bought a novel of Mrs. Fiorella de Maria "This thing of Darkness" cowritten by his friend C.V. Turley i will read when i return of Valladolid nowadays i continue to the Village."

Fonch, that book is SO GOOD! I have a real passion for the classic horror films of the 1930s, so it was a dream to read a book that combined Catholicism with horror like that. It's a slow burn and absolutely amazing (which is why I'm SO EXCITED that Fiorella de Maria is in this group and that we're reading Poor Banished Children!) 🤩

Thanks Emmy 🙂. I was who nominated "Poor banished children" at Last of some years the book was elected. I say thanks to John and the Professor Manuel Alfonseca for this excellent discussion. About "This thing of Darkness" i promised to Mrs. De Maria a review in two languages i also will write in the polish language. I asked for a Mrs. De Maria an especial favor. I also would like to announce that the Professor Manuel Alfonseca, Jaime Blanch and me will have a discussion about science fiction. I am very pleased for this favor.

I'm particularly excited to read this book after having read This Thing of Darkness. I don't read a lot of historical fiction, but I adore Bela Lugosi, so that book was a rare treat. I also loved The Sleeping Witness. I know next to nothing about Malta or the Barbary slave trade, so I'm both excited and a little apprehensive to find out!

Well for this reason i am here i studied the degree of history exactly modern history. This period of the history that Fiorella told in her novel.

Emmy wrote: "I know next to nothing about Malta or the Barbary slave trade, so I'm both excited and a little apprehensive to find out!"

I was in Malta in 2007, and two of my novels (The last dinosaur and The Tartessian Crown) take place (in whole or in part) in Malta. But I never was in Gozo, the little island where Warda was born.

Both novels are really good although the first is a bit sad.

I'll add them to my list, then. Thank you :)

Excellent choices Emmy 😁.

I have finished. This is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This is my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I finished on Sunday. Review here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I did not say before but i love the trailer of "Poor banished children" i have with my favorite podcast in YouTube. I loved the trailers of Ignatius Press novels "Toward to the gleam", "Looking for the king" and "Voyage to Alpha Centauri"
https://youtu.be/rVoZH58GwEY?si=i4OZD...

It is curious but i did not remember "Poor Banished Children" i read it in 2019 and i concluded it the day of my birthday. This thing is an evidence that i had especial expectation with this novel and i gave a position of privilege. If i decided to read a book the day of my birthday is because is a big novel and it is worth of being read it.

I had forgotten about the trailer! Ignatius Press stopped making these some time after, but it was a good way to introduce a new book.

I didn't know Ignatius Press titles had trailers! 😲 I'm going to have to check this one out!

Okay, just watched the trailer. That was excellent! I'm sad to hear Ignatius Press stopped making trailers!

Fiorella wrote: "I had forgotten about the trailer! Ignatius Press stopped making these some time after, but it was a good way to introduce a new book."

Surely they would stop doing it for economic reasons. I loved them I had the whole collection of novel trailers and all the best lists of books that were read every year at Ignatius Press and, The Catholic World Report.

Emmy wrote: "I didn't know Ignatius Press titles had trailers! 😲 I'm going to have to check this one out!"

Yes, and they are very good. I loved them. Foolish me, I should have taken the trailer out earlier.

Emmy wrote: "Okay, just watched the trailer. That was excellent! I'm sad to hear Ignatius Press stopped making trailers!"

so am I, 😭

About to finish "In this thing of Darkness" I only have fifty pages left. But to be honest, I'm more afraid of editor Goldberg than Bela Lugosi. A powerful gentleman is Mr. Money 😁.

At least I think they have stopped. None of my other books have trailers

Fiorella wrote: "At least I think they have stopped. None of my other books have trailers"

It is true and that is greatly missed, but I attribute it to budget cuts. There have been several economic crises and a pandemic that is almost the same.

Ah, Fonch! I can't wait to see your review!! 🤩

Emmy wrote: "Ah, Fonch! I can't wait to see your review!! 🤩"

Soon you will have it, I hope it will be to Mrs. De Maria's taste, and you can grant me the favor I am going to ask of you. In this case, the review will be done first in Words to be able to translate it into English and then I will pass it on to my social networks and, finally, I will post it on Goodreads. In honor of Mrs. De Maria has reminded me of many writers whom I greatly appreciate.

I agree -- wonderful trailer!

Kristi wrote: "I agree -- wonderful trailer!"

I adore it 😍

Fonch, I am very curious to know what you are going to ask 😀

Fiorella wrote: "Fonch, I am very curious to know what you are going to ask 😀"

When I have finished my review I will propose it to you, let's see how my idea goes?

Tomorrow (Sept. 24) is the feast day of Our Lady of Ransom!

I love that we read this book in September. It had made me appreciate even more this feast and the orders established to free Christians taken into slavery.

I've never heard of Our Lady of Ransom before! 😲 Will have to read about her.

She's also called Our Lady of Mercy. The female name Mercedes comes from this advocation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_...

and the Order of the same name who was involved in rescuing Christian captives:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_o...

Mariangel wrote: "She's also called Our Lady of Mercy. The female name Mercedes comes from this advocation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_...

and the Order of the same name who was involved in rescuing..."
Another issue that should have been talked about by the activity of the Mercedarian friars, as Mari Ángeles points out, since the Middle Ages were basic in the liberation of a lot of Christian captives in North Africa, including Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The novelist and priest Jesús Sánchez Adalid wrote about this subject Treinta doblones de oro. Another novel about captives by the same author is the El caballero de Alcántara La sublime puerta El cautivo and, although it is no longer this subject I highly recommend the novel of In the time of the Syrian pope about the Christians in Muslim Syria of the seventh and eighth centuries and the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Visigothic Spain. It is very topical. PD. Kristi's observation is very accurate, I believe that it is the work of Providence that we have chosen this book precisely this month over that of Our Lady of Mercy. I definitely don't believe in coincidences, I leave that to others.

I agree, Fonch. I don't believe in coincidence, either!

Emmy wrote: "I agree, Fonch. I don't believe in coincidence, either!"

We will leave that to the four horsemen of atheism, to Dawkins and his boys. That they don't believe in God, but they do believe in blessed chance ;-)😁.

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for how good this colloquium has been, or discussion of "The Poor Banished Children" which has been one of the ones I have enjoyed the most and, I share with you what I said about this discussion in my review This Thing of Darkness that I am going to post right now of . I hope Fiorella de Maria can do me that favor I asked of her in exchange for the criticism that due to its length I have divided into two parts. An annex where he spoke of Fiorella De Maria and Ignatius Press and another of the novel itself.

This is the second book I have read to the Anglo-Maltese writer @FiorelladeMaria. The first book that was read to him wasPoor Banished Children published as in @ignatiuspress which is being the providential reading of the month of September in The Catholic Book Club, I share the link in case anyone wishes to participate in the discussion of the same https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group... it should be remembered that it is for users of @goodreads and, for members of The Catholic Book Club, but anyone can become a member of Goodreads and, The Catholic Book Club (especially if you like Catholic books as a humble servant). Before I continue with my review of "In this thing of Darkness" I would first like to thank my sister @maggiesendra who got me this book. I don't have a credit card and I can't do these types of acquisitions or transactional operations by myself. Apart from the fact that I am more in favor of buying books in the usual bookstores and helping small and medium-sized businesses against powerful trusts such as Amazon. Only when the book is out of print, or I am in great urgency to get it, do I resort to these solutions only in cases of extreme necessity. The second thing that must be said is that the discussion of the book "Poor banished children" is being a success and, we must thank all those who are participating in the discussion, first of all Fiorella de Maria for lending herself to participate, then to the moderators of the group John Seymour and, my friend Professor Manuel Alfonseca whose contributions are also priceless to Emmy, Mari Ángeles, Jill, Don Mario, Steven R. McEvoy, Kristi and Katherine Koch. Hopefully Don Mario's good wishes will be fulfilled and a film adaptation of "Poor Banished Children" can be made and an Italian edition of this novel can be made. Otherwise, my next project will be to acquire the fantasy anthology in which my friend has participated, José Baena Castel entitled Melodías del acero and which I recommend.

Alright, now this shipment took quite some time, I received this book yesterday, so I'll try to catch up ;)

Better late than never, Sebastian! I hope you enjoy the book :D

I totally agree with me. I hope that you enjoy with this excellent novel.

Oh thank you, Fiorella, time flew by while reading this book, I had sometimes wet eyes, and was astonished by your ability to show God's mercy in a story full of terror and pain. It was so good I gave it immediately to a friend after finishing it :).