{"product_id":"wine-of-satan","title":"Wine Of Satan","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription of WINE OF SATAN:  A NOVEL OF THE FIRST CRUSADE by Laverne Gay:\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWine of Satan\u003c\/em\u003e moves forward five centuries to a powerful and dramatic tale of love and war in the high Middle age, to the story of Bohemond, a man of superb subtlety and passion, whose amazing personality captivated his age and mapped the destinies of the First Crusade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBohemond was born Marc de Hauteville in Norman Italy, a son of Count Robert de Hauteville, a towering redhead who was called Guiscard the Wary and was the greatest of the Twelve Norman Counts.  Guiscard was a wonderful parent for a lucky boy to claim---the most exciting man in all Italy.  But he was also something to give a growing boy unhappiness, for he was, in fact, nothing but a legend.  Marc had been only a babe in arms when Guiscard, who made his own rules for life, had formed an infatuation for Sigelgaita, a Lombard princess-handsome, strong-willed, unscrupulous.  So he had divorced Marc's mother for papal dispensation and had gone out and away, to conquer for himself all of South Italy and Sigelgaita with it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd thus, as this story unfolds, we see a youth of thirteen leaving Melfi and his tearful mother and riding out alone for the Adriatic to join his idolized father whose face he cannot remember.  Marc means to become a knight in Guiscard's train, but instead he rides straight into the enmity of a powerful stepmother, jealous for her own son.  And his father, despite all the boy's rosy dreams, seems scarcely to remember him and not to car.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was a situation that would either overwhelm a boy or sharpen his wits and steel his nature.  Young Marc grew to meet it.  As Bohemond he became more stalwart, more forceful and magnetic than his father---perhaps even more lustfully sensuous and selfish.  But he also had a conscience.  Though he took what he wanted, he suffered for it---and so did the wife of his trusting friend Mihera, The Lady Zoe, who found herself bound to Bohemond by fetters perhaps stronger and surely stranger than any ever forged in marriage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49903167144152,"sku":"","price":4.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/files\/WineOfSatan.jpg?v=1735834888","url":"https:\/\/conniesbookshelf.com\/products\/wine-of-satan","provider":"Connies Bookshelf","version":"1.0","type":"link"}