Robert E. Hirsch is represented by Jeanie Loiacono of the Loiacono Literary Agency
CONTRITION (JournalStone Publishing, 2012)
In a tiny Mississippi Gulf Coast community, Brother Placidus finds little Amanda LeFleur sacrificed beneath the life-sized crucifix stored in the attic of the Brothers of the Holy Cross. Assigned to investigate is detective Peter Toche whose deteriorating mental state is increasingly haunted by visions of a small girl who was brutally murdered in New Orleans when he worked there. Her death had, somehow, caused him to retreat to his small hometown of Gulf Springs. But even now he remain unsettled by her death. Stirred by her ghostly memory, Toche struggles to correlate Amanda LeFleur's murder with the mysterious suicide of a Brother of the Holy Cross decades earlier in the same attic.
As additional victims are discovered, Tristan de SaintGermain, a mysterious man recently rescued from the waters near the residence of the Brothers of the Holy Cross, may hold the key to the dreadful shadow that has befallen the small fishing community. Indeed, little Amanda was only the beginning...
*JournalStone Publishing, 2012 ... available for order in paperback, hardcover, and e-book (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, etc...)
As additional victims are discovered, Tristan de SaintGermain, a mysterious man recently rescued from the waters near the residence of the Brothers of the Holy Cross, may hold the key to the dreadful shadow that has befallen the small fishing community. Indeed, little Amanda was only the beginning...
*JournalStone Publishing, 2012 ... available for order in paperback, hardcover, and e-book (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, etc...)
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The Dark Ages Saga of
Tristan de Saint-Germain:
A Five Novel Medieval Series
by Robert E. Hirsch
(OPEN ROADS PUBLISHING/MEDIA)
The Dark Ages Saga of
Tristan de Saint-Germain:
A Five Novel Medieval Series
by Robert E. Hirsch
(OPEN ROADS PUBLISHING/MEDIA)
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*Full page ads: NY Times Book Review
May 22 and June 5, 2016 (paid by Argus Publishing)
(Cost: $28,900 per ad)
Book 1: PROMISE OF THE BLACK MONKS (Feb, 2016)
One day, rudely expelled from the warm, safe haven of woman’s womb, every infant born into this life gasps for air in a most humble and helpless beginning as, blinking in terror, it enters the world. If fortune smiles, this infant then flourishes and matures. Mother Time teaches this innocent creature how to weigh and measure his surroundings, his words, and his actions throughout childhood and adolescence, and into manhood. Again, if fortune smiles, this once naked and unknowing infant may discover that he has, after some effort, earned his way into an arena where he might drive not only his own destiny, but that of others. Indeed, he might even impact the history of the entire human race, and determine whether civilization takes one path or the other… if God wills it. This is the story of one such child: Tristan de Saint-Germain.
Born of nobility in France in the year 1066, the fate of seven-year-old Tristan de Saint-Germain is thrown to the wind upon the execution of his father for treason against William the Conqueror of Normandy. Then, abandoned by his mother who remarries and departs for England, Tristan and his four-year-old brother find themselves thrown into the monastic world of the Benedictine Black Monks of Cluny, France. Under the tutelage of grand Prior Odo de Lagery, who one day will ascend to the very pinnacle of power within the Catholic Church in Rome, Tristan develops into an academic and linguistic prodigy by the age of twelve... becoming known as 'the Promise of the Black Monks.'
Tristan's frightening intelligence and unusual talents become useful to the Benedictines as well as to Rome, and the boy soon discovers himself pulled into the visceral power struggle between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Heinrich IV as they mercilessly wage spiritual, political and military war upon each other to claim supremacy over the continent of Europe.
*Amazon Customer Reviews
Like watching a movie in my mind!, September 10, 2016
By Tom Battle - See all my reviews
Verified Purchase
This review is from: Promise of the Black Monks (Paperback) 5*****
While reading 'Promise of the Black Monks' it was if the words projected a movie in my mind. I was held as a willing captive by the narrative. I couldn't help but notice the similarity of the political, spiritual, and military turmoil of the Dark Ages to the turmoil we experience in our world today. It reminded me of Mark Twain's quote: "History doesn't repeat itself but it sure does rhyme!"
An Engagement of the Mind!, July 24, 2016
By Jason Pugh - See all my reviews
Verified Purchase
This review is from: Promise of the Black Monks (Paperback) 5*****
Promise of the Black Monks engages the mind in the creation of intricate imagery as it draws one into the life of the main character, Tristan de Saint-Germain. The imagery, the characters, the accurate historical representation, and the pace combine to propel the reader forward from page to page. The work successfully transcends multiple genres to achieve success in them all. It is a book that should be widely read, enjoyed and shared with others. Hammer of God is awaited with anticipation.
Keeper!, September 26, 2016
By Amazon Customer - See all my reviews
Verified Purchase
This review is from: Promise of the Black Monks (Paperback) 5*****
This book will be one that stays on my shelf and will be read again and again. The history is rich and detailed and helped me learn about a time period in which I was unaware. I was enthralled by the narrative of Promise of the Black Monks that I didn't want to stop reading. These characters (fictional and non fictional) have stayed with me as I think of them often. I have the next book: "Hammer of God" and cannot wait to see what happens.
By Ricky Lee Gutierrezon June 26, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
This was a great book. Can not wait for the next.
5.0 out of 5 starsMust read!!!!
By Jeanette Osteron June 5, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Very well written. Loved it
5.0 out of 5 starsI can't wait for the next one.
By Sam Davison April 23, 2016
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Promise of the Black Monks was a fantastic read. The characters and plot reeled me in and wouldn't let me go! I finished this book in four days.
› See all 13 customer reviews...
Book 2: HAMMER OF GOD (DEC 20, '22 OPEN ROADS MEDIA)
Ordained as a Black Monk, Tristan de Saint-Germain is initiated into the conspiratorial, violent world of Medieval Europe's most secretive organization, the Benedictine Underground. But winds of change are stirring across the continent, and Tristan finds himself cast into raging currents of time and circumstance far outweighing his ability to repel... challenging the very glue of his unshakeable faith, sweeping him toward the precipice of personal and spiritual perdition.
Thus caught in the ever merciless web of Church-sanctified intrigue, political manipulation and assassination, a yet greater trial suddenly emerges from his past... the shadow of Mala the Romani, beautiful gypsy girl of his youth. Finding himself lost in her ethereal thrall, Tristan struggles to honor his loyalty to Cardinal Odo de Lagery and the Church, while also unearthing within his own heart the limits of an all consuming, encompassing love rooted so deeply as to invite spiritual collapse and eternal damnation.
Book 3: A HORDE OF FOOLS (DEC 20, '22 OPEN ROADS MEDIA)
Wild-eyed evangelist Kuku Peter (the Hermit) inflames the pauper hordes of Europe, raising a violent peasant army of 30,000 men, women, children and elderly intent on recapturing Jerusalem from Islam. Untrained, armed with farm implements, lacking provisions, this raging mob scorches a path across Europe and into Byzantium, leaving behind a horrid trail of intolerance and destruction.
Young Bishop Tristan de Saint-Germain is sent by Pope Urban II to stop Kuku Peter's 'march of madness' but ends by trailing it all the way to Constantinople. Arriving there, he unexpectedly discovers beautiful Mala the Romani awaiting him, still hoping to pull him from the grasp of the Pope and the Vatican. As their heart-breaking, obsessive past unearths itself while promising resurrection, the future of Christendom hangs in the balance as Kuku Peter's renegade army tramps into the Sultanate of Rum... and destiny.
Clinging to each other in defiant desperation, driven by hope and an illicit love forbidden by the Church, Tristan and Mala struggle to survive the raging currents of race, war and faith as humanity approaches the greatest cultural war of all time... the Holy Crusades.
Book 4: God's Scarlet Fury (DEC 20, '22 OPEN ROADS MEDIA)
At the very moment we are expelled from the secluded shelter of woman’s womb, we are rudely struck by… light. Caught in its startling glare, we wail in full-throated terror, knowing somehow that we have been thrust into an inexorable dance of survival or extinction at the hands of others. From that instant, like pulsing schools of fleeing spawn cast loose from egg sacs into the raging river, we then instinctively hide, dodge, and flee… or pursue and seize. Indeed, though we claim the superior qualities of humanity, we in essence differ little from those primordial creatures of the far flung savannas that are doomed at birth to enter life’s ceaseless chase as either predator or prey.
Such, then, is human existence upon this earth as shaped and determined by man, though God did not ordain it so. Many contemporaries refute such analogies, insisting that humanity has advanced far beyond the savagery of past ages. Yet, people by the millions on this earth continue to starve, live in fear, and die at the hands of others who continue to engineer conquest and war, for their own gain beneath the guise of race, religion, or nationality.
It was no different as the Year of Our Lord 1096 slipped into January of 1097 in the great city of Constantinople, capital and crown jewel of the Byzantine Empire ruled by Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. Fearing an Islamic takeover by the aggressive Seljuq Turks to his east, Emperor Alexius and the Greek Orthodox Christians of Byzantium had two years earlier pleaded for military assistance from Pope Urban II, Holy Father of all Roman Catholics in Western Europe. In response, Pope Urban II declared a ‘holy crusade’ against the Turks for the dual purpose of assisting fellow Christians, though of a different rite, and freeing the holy city of Jerusalem from the military subjugation of Islam. As Pope Urban finished his incendiary war plea at Clermont, France in November of 1095 to the faithful knights of France, ten thousand impassioned warriors savagely beat their shields with swords and cried out in unison, “Dieu le veut! God wills it!” This cry then spread amongst the knights of Italy and Germany who responded in kind, thus giving rise to the greatest continental military mobilization in history as horde after horde of Christian men-at-arms from throughout Western Europe began their journey to Constantinople where their combined forces would muster as a single army and attack the Seljuq Empire. It was, more than anything, a gathering of wild bulls.
These Christian knights vowing to cast God’s scarlet fury down upon Islam were an elite warrior class steeped in violence, conquest, and plunder. At their hands, bloodlust and savagery had ceaselessly scarred the landscape of Europe and plagued that continent’s population, decimating the innocent along with the opposition. Indeed, to the nobles of this warrior class the value of another man’s life held less worth than the dirt it took to cover his corpse. Now these Christian knights, at Pope Urban II’s urging, were gathering to unleash their fury across the borders of Byzantium into Asia Minor and the Near East.
Thus began the First Holy Crusade, yet another war of unimaginable dimension and consequence devised by a handful of powerful men purporting to turn bloodshed into a sacred act… in the name of God and glory.
Book 5: Cup of Blood... Bread of Salvation (DEC 20, '22 (OPEN ROADS MEDIA)
Series conclusion: After great misery, bloodletting, and the siege of Antioch, Tristan and Mala push toward Jerusalem and the final outcome of the First Holy Crusade. As this cataclysmic battle rages, Tristan and Mala must make a final determination... abide by Tristan's Church vows for a life of separation... or slip away into uncertainty, damning the Church, for a future together.
In 1097 Pope Urban’s Army of God confronts the great Oriental city of Antioch, its final obstacle before reclaiming Jerusalem from the hammer of Islam. But Antioch is defended by the wily Turcoman, Emir Yaghi Siyan, and the fearsome atabeg of Mosul, Kerbogha.
After overcoming a tortuous trail rooted during childhood of impossibility, separation, and heartbreak, Bishop Tristan de Saint-Germain and Mala the Romani finally stand at the precipice of a new life together. But Antioch snares them both, forcing Tristan to decide between honoring his ‘father’ in this life, Pope Urban II, or abandoning Catholicism forever in favor of exile with Mala in the Middle East. Showing up unexpectedly in the midst of this crucible, honorable Lord Abdul Azim and murderous Mahmoud Malik create further complexities... thus bringing together in one final episode all the primary characters of the Dark Ages Saga of Tristan de Saint-Germain, including Peter the Hermit, treacherous Desmond DuLac, Tafur the Peasant Butcher, and Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy.
Shall the forces of God prevail, or those of Allah?
