The Bones You Have Cast Down

"Enchanting and richly historical ... dazzling and dark, heart-wrenching and intoxicating..." Stuart R. Kaplan

Based on the true history of the Popess tarot card.

In 1447, Taria is swept from a convent orphanage into the glittering retinue of the duchess of Milan. Lowborn in a highborn circle, she has never felt so alone. Then a small, mysterious painting of a female pope carries her back 150 years to the joyous circle of a holy woman, worshipped in her time, mysteriously obscure in Taria’s time.

The duchess believes the journey is only a vision, yet she orders Taria to learn more. Reviving the holy woman’s fame could bring badly needed prestige to the noble family. But Taria conceals a devastating revelation: the Inquisition is on the hunt for the saint and her followers.

As jealousy wrecks her romance and poisons her closest friendship, Taria shuns the present and embraces the holy woman’s circle as the family she has always craved. 

And the Inquisition closes in.

"The Bones You Have Cast Down transported me to Italy at the dawn of the Renaissance, and into the heart of a young woman who’s deceptively quiet, extraordinarily spirited. From the hand-painted tarot cards to lavish festivities set amidst the misery of war, from cathedrals to village churches, Jean Huets brings alive this paradoxical time. The Bones You Have Cast Down is enchanting and richly historical, as well as dazzling and dark, heart-wrenching and intoxicating." — Stuart R. Kaplan, author of Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story

"An intriguing story with an element of magic. Adults and teens alike will be drawn to this historical novel." — Cary Meltzer Frostick, reviewer for School Library Journal and Youth Services librarian

"A storytelling treasure. Huets transports the reader into the mind of a young fifteenth century Italian with all the assurance and intimacy which one expects of a modern bard. The sights, smells, feel of Renaissance Italy seep from every pore of the story. The Inquisition lurks in the shadows. Speculative elements are deftly melded into the mix.… Thought provoking as well as entertaining." — Ron Andre, A Matter of Fancy

JEAN HUETS is author of With Walt Whitman: Himself, acclaimed by Whitman scholar Ed Folsom as "a true Whitmanian feast." Other published works include The Cosmic Tarot book (illustrated by Norbert Loesche) and, with tarot authority Stuart R. Kaplan, The Encyclopedia of Tarot. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, The Millions, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review and other journals. She co-founded Circling Rivers, an independent press dedicated to poetry and to literary fiction and nonfiction set in North America.