Anna Sloman-Gower started writing whilst still at school and has had many articles and poems published. Her writing skills were channelled for years into creating new qualifications for teacher training in the adult sector. Anna’s creative work is inspired by the people and cultures she has encountered. Whilst working at a university in Morocco, the BBC World Service broadcast her short story Abdul’s Bananas about a young boy trying to win himself a bride through playing music. During lockdown, Anna started telling regular stories to her grandchildren which developed into a book about their adventures together. This inspired her to write about her own childhood memories and was the motivation for Rawny.
Joy is born into an era of post-war uncertainty, one of the first babies delivered by the newly created NHS. A house move aged ten is unsettling and she struggles to make sense of the world and establish her identity. The novel charts her path through the trauma of the eleven plus and separation from her friends and culture. She experiences bullying and alienation at her new school and is helped by close friends, a supportive family and most importantly the local gypsies who live on the wasteland near her home. Rawny and his family take Joy into their hearts and share their lives and rich culture with her. The close enduring bonds Joy forges at this vital time of life enable her to navigate the difficulties life presents and enable her to find her own moral compass.
In 1519, Pedro, a Franciscan priest, sets sail from Cuba with Hernan Cortes’ brutal expedition to South America. Though filled with passion for adventure and converting native peoples to Catholicism, Pedro is unprepared for the shocking barbarity he is about to encounter.
Accompanying Pedro is his friend Aguilar, who spent eight nightmarish years enslaved by natives after being shipwrecked. As the journey to Mexico City grows increasingly treacherous – fraught with disease, deprivation, and attacks – Pedro and Aguilar bear witness to scenes of unimaginable cruelty.
They stand amazed by the intelligence and charisma of King Montezuma and the exotic sophistication of the Aztec capital with its ornate temples decorated in thousands of sacrificial human skulls. Yet beneath the surface beauty lies a dark terror: cages of men, women and children being fattened for ritual sacrifice, their beating hearts cut from their chests as offerings to the gods.
As the campaign unfurls, Pedro and Aguilar are shocked by the brutality of their own countrymen. The ruthless exploitation of natives causes them to question their purpose here. Are they true men of God or merely instruments of Spanish greed? When fellow conquistador Alvarado orchestrates the brutal massacre of Aztec nobles at the feast of Toxcatl, Pedro and Aguilar are forced to make an existential reckoning. Their encounters with local people lead both men to reexamine every aspect of their lives and reconsider what they once thought was their higher purpose.
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