CASTILE: 1350 to 1450 were bitter years in Spain, culminating in the massacre of Jews who would not convert to Catholicism, producing a class of conversos who, as Fernando del Pulgar, converso and chronicler of royalty wrote, "...were not keeping either one law (Mosaic) or the other (Christian)." This trilogy of novels depicts the interaction of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and conversos in Spain in the second half of the fifteenth century, when convivencia, a period of relative harmony between religions, faltered. The books center on a young converso, Fernán Hernandes, whose ancestors converted from Judaism to Catholicism during the massacres of 1391. This first volume takes place during a rebellion in 1449 against the crown led by a second-class noble in Toledo, during which Fernán, enmeshed in a struggle to establish parity with Old Christians, though cursed as a marrano (swine), falls deeply in love with a Jewish maiden, ignoring a law that forbade marrying a Jew. For should they marry, the clergy would condemn Fernán as heretic and have him burned at the stake. Intertwining historical fact with fiction, this book presents a suspense-filled tale of love and peril in an era of severe religious oppression.Praise for the Novel"...a pleasure to read an account of medieval Spain so well grounded in historical detail."David V. Holtby, Editor, UNM Press, Visiting Scholar, Center for Regional Studies"Marrano was hard to put down."Stephen Lewis, author of Hotel Kid"What a delight!...totally absorbing and entertaining...the writing is terrific." Jerome L. Jacobs, MD, psychiatrist, author of Interplay