Michael Llewellyn's first mystery includes a long-overdue expose of the historic California Mission system. Armed with extensive research, including 18th century eyewitness accounts, he explodes the romantic myths surrounding the so-called benevolent Franciscan padres and their Native American converts, lifting the "Adobe Curtain" to reveal a world of slavery, deprivation and cruelty. Once you read Communion of Sinners, you'll never see the famous missions in the same light again. The plot unfolds quickly as New Orleans travel writer Sam Crockett drives across country to visit friends in Carmel, California. He stops along the way to explore isolated Soledad Mission and ventures into the cemetery where he stumbles upon what he believes is an ancient skeleton. When local police determine the bones are recent, Sam finds himself on the scent of a potentially explosive story and calls his partner Claudia Durand for help. The veteran photojournalism team has barely begun work when another corpse appears.The journals of a recently deceased and famously reclusive anthropologist provide clues leading the team to the Santa Cruz Mission and three skeletons unearthed by the Loma Prieta earthquake and hastily reburied when their crushed skulls scream murder. Despite being stonewalled by the local Catholic Church, Sam and Claudia persevere in searching for the truth which, unbelievably, connects murders committed over two centuries ago with the recent killings. As the idyllic California landscape becomes littered with the corpses of Spanish soldiers, Franciscan padres, Native Americans and modern-day journalists, Sam and Claudia wonder if they'll be next as they unmask a deadly and unholy Communion of Sinners."Llewellyn has cooked up a savory literary paella inspired by the hidden history of California's Spanish missions and flavored it with a touch of investigative journalism and the beauty of the Pacific coast. Mysterious deaths, long-held secrets, heartbreak and wonderful descriptions of food and wine combine in this compelling new novel to create a feast of a book." --Anne Hillerman, author of Spider Woman's Daughter"As a Carmel native, I know Llewellyn's territory well, but he has unearthed long-ignored truths about California's mission system that are sure to stir controversy. He showcases his findings in an enthralling murder mystery that deftly links ancient killings to contemporary crimes while sending the reader on a rollercoaster ride with a take-no-prisoners finale. Fasten your seatbelts!" -Ciji Ware, author of That Autumn in Edinburgh, Book Two of the Four Seasons Quartet

Communion of Sinners

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Llewellyn, Michael

Mystery

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Descending into madness at the hands of her sadistic husband and the restrictions of her Creole society, Justine Blancard is rescued by the handsome Duncan Saunders and is dragged with him into the dangerous and erotic life of New Orleans. A first novel.

Twelfth Night

Literature & Fiction

United States

Kensington Pub. Corp

Nineteenth-century New Orleans is an exotic city divided between the old-world French and American nouveau riche--two cultures with nothing in common but the profane pleasures of Twelfth Night, a time of divine celebration and reckless indiscretions. It is in this city that Creole beauty Justine Blanchard lives with her sadistic husband, Hilaire. She is slowly descending into a state of madness when salvation arrives in the form of handsome American Duncan Saunders. Reissue. .

Contemporary

From WATER STREET PRESSIn 1872, French painter Edgar Degas is disillusioned by a lackluster career and haunted by the Prussian siege of Paris and the bloodbath of the Commune. Seeking personal and professional rebirth, he journeys to New Orleans, birthplace of his Creole mother. He is horrified to learn he has exchanged one city in crisis for another—post-Civil War New Orleans is a corrupt town occupied by hostile Union troops and suffering under the heavy hand of Reconstruction. He is further shocked to find his family deeply involved in the violent struggle to reclaim political power at all costs. Despite the chaos swirling around him, Degas sketches and paints with fervor and manages to reinvent himself and transition his style from neoclassical into the emerging world of Impressionism. He ultimately became one of the masters of the new movement, but how did New Orleans empower Degas to fulfill this destiny? The answer may be found in the impeccably researched, richly imagined historical novel, Creole Son.

Creole Son

Genre Fiction

Water Street Press

The blood drying under the Mississippi moon was the bluest in Natchez. President and the Confederate President, army generals and ambassadors, not to mention madness, incest, racism, bitter internecine feuds, vertiginous falls from grace and eccentricity in spades. The case became known as the Goat Castle Murder. Michael Llewellyn has taken the known facts of the case, breathed life into these eccentric Southerners, and created a fascinating novel, The Goat Castle Murder.

The Goat Castle Murder

Welcome to Meander, Tennessee, circa 1957, smack dab in the middle of the ever-blooming, mayonnaise-slathering, kudzu-swarming, moonshine-swilling, deep-frying, Bible-beating, cotton-pickin’ South. This is where the mayor runs white lightning out of the local cat house, Baptist preachers read girlie magazines and Jesus saves S&H Green Stamps. It’s also where Anrita Harrington is Dixie’s reigning chicken salad queen, Cassandra Maddox teaches her high school class plenty more than English, Sylvianne McNeil sets her cap for husband (and bourbon) number five, and, from her pillared mansion high atop the bluff, Eulalie “Miss Sugar” Saunders takes potshots with her late husband’s elephant gun. Visitors who see Meander as a picture perfect Southern town have no idea what’s simmering behind that genteel Magnolia Curtain. By the time folks gather on Labor Day to celebrate the town’s 150th birthday, longtime feuds boil over like a pot of overheated grits, stirred to a fare-the-well by the mayor’s wife, Fern Abernathy, the KKK, and none other than Hollywood movie star Robert Mitchum. Mud is literally flung, lives are wrecked and saved, arrests are made, history is rewritten and truths are exposed that should’ve stayed hidden where the sun don’t shine. Unrefined, Sugar is one wacky, bittersweet, screwball page-turner.

Unrefined, Sugar

Humor & Satire

DEFAMED

Independently published

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Books by Llewellyn, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Llewellyn, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Communion of Sinners

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

Creole Son

The Goat Castle Murder

Unrefined, Sugar

DEFAMED