The Fatima letter

About the Book

The Virgin Mary has been forgotten from Gnostic studies—till this novel by a contemporary author. Mary becomes the goddess of Gnostic spirituality, who intervenes in world history and causes the course of that history to irrevocably change. This occurs in Portugal, when in 1911 all religious practices are banned by a brutal Gestapo paramiltary regime, and where in 1917 the Virgin Mary appears to three small shepherd children at Fatima, a tiny Portuguese village. Regular appearances of the Gnostic goddess topples the government without a shot being fired. A goddess has been found for the modern age. Our goddess holds a metaphysical secret, the famed Fatima Letter, to be revealed in 1960, which this new gospel-novel reaches in the closing chapter. Earlier chapters trace Mary from her joyous Annunciation to her tragic watch at the foot of the cross. She is the friend of apostles, both men and women. She reveres a Yahweh who can respond to both sexes. When she makes modern apparitions, she often chooses witnesses—Bernadette at Lourdes, the Fatima children—of her own gender. She is a goddess of recent history, yet with us for two thousand years, a force against apocalyptic threats, a cherished Gnostic figure who means to stay.

About the Author

Tom O. Jones has published the scholarly Hermeticism and Renaissance Magic in the Shakespeare Sonnets with Edwin Mellen Press. His novel The Death Gods of Applevale was a 1992 winner of the West Virginia Writers award. Other novels include Red Swastika at the Crystal Palace and StarTwist Blue: A Science-Fiction Comedy. He has published 150 poems in 50 literary quarterlies and is a member of the American Academy of Poets. His latest book is a combination of collected poems with the short novel The Fatima Letter: A Gnostic Gospel of the Virgin Mary. With Royal Fireworks Press, he has published two young adult novels, Lord of the Geats, a retelling of the Beowulf epic, and Tinyacha’s Quest, a retelling of ancient Peruvian Peruvian folktales. He is an environmentalist, a member of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition ()VEC), and lives in West Virginia.