Van Coevorden’s ring…
If you’ve read my novel Son of Thunder from the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, you’ll know that Esther keeps a special ring found in a Turkish cave and used it as a wedding band for Bastiann van Coevorden at their betrothal that takes place at the end of the novel. It later has a few cameos in some novels of the series that follow.
This ring is special, although in that novel there was only one Lord of the ring! Nothing to do with J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy (really one long saga split into three novels), but a bit of religious mystery never quite resolved, making Son of Thunder a lot more mysterious than other novels in the series. (Esther is still waiting for the Vatican museum’s answer to her queries.)
In fact, the question still remains, now that the series has ended: Should Bastiann keep that ancient relic with its inscription in Aramaic? He and Esther have no male children to pass it onto, although Esther has two older brothers she’s estranged from. (They only exchange Christmas cards.) What will happen to that ring when Bastiann leaves this mortal coil?
I hadn’t thought about that question much. (Seven novels in the series–two are free PDFs downloadable from this website’s “Free Stuff & Contests” web page–follow Son of Thunder, as well as other novels.) But I did what everyone else did not that long ago: Ring in the new year! Okay, that’s a terrible pun. No, this question really arose when I finished The Hobbit (I’d read the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a kid but not The Hobbit).
Van Coevorden’s ring represents a bit of mysticism left over from the most mysterious of all Esther’s mystery/thriller novels. Or, does it just represent a bit of history? Perhaps I should write a piece of short fiction about the fate of that ring and what else Esther and Bastiann found in Turkey? We’ll see.
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Son of Thunder. Esther Brookstone first sets out to prove that Sandro Botticelli, the famous Renaissance artist, was never in Turkey despite what his parish priest claims. The story is told in a document found tucked into the the frame of a Botticelli painting the priest owned; it was tucked behind its frame. She finds out she’s wrong and decides to also search for the tomb of St. John the Divine. Available as an ebook and paper version wherever exciting fiction is sold. (If your local bookstore doesn’t have it, ask them to order it!)
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
