Promo: The Blackest Time by Ken Tentarelli

Today, I'm delighted to welcome author, Ken Tentarelli, to Ruins & Reading. We're sharing an intriguing excerpt from his new novel, The Blackest Time, about the plague in Florence. It's well worth checking out. Read on!

The Blackest Time is currently on blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club. Find other interesting posts, tempting excerpts, author interviews and fab reviews HERE!





The Blackest Time

A Novel of Florence During the Black Plague
 

Ken Tentarelli





Excerpt:

Main character, Gino, works at an apothecary shop in Florence. His sister Lucia works as a housemaid for an important magistrate. The rest of his family, including two brothers and two young sisters, had fled to Pisa after two years of nearly constant rain inundated their family farm. Gino worries because the plague is ravaging Pisa. Here, he gets word about them. 

At the waterfront, Gino paced back and forth impatiently, waiting for a craft to appear at the bend in the river. He was about to leave when a barge captained by the swarthy muscular man came into view. Gino ran to the dock, hoping the captain might have news from Gino’s brother. 

Gino stood expectantly as the man came toward him and said, “I spoke with your brother.” He locked eyes with Gino. “It’s not the news you wish to hear. I’m sorry to tell you, the sickness took your mother.” Gino shuddered. The man continued, “Many others who worked with her making ship sails were also stricken.” 

Gino fell to his knees with his hands over his face. The man said, “You’re just hearing this now, but your brother said it happened at the beginning of the year. The rest of your family was spared.” 

Images flashed through Gino’s mind of his caring mother. He envisioned her picking him up, carrying him to the house, and bandaging his scraped knee when, as a toddler, he had fallen from a tree. He flashed through other memories ending with the time, just before he left for Florence, when he saw in her eyes that she wanted him to go, but she also wanted him to stay. 

By mid-morning, Signor Roselli, the owner of the apothecary where Gino worked, knew something was wrong because Gino had never missed work without notice. At the end of the day, Roselli closed the apothecary, made his way across the city to the Santa Maria Novella district and rapped on Gino’s door. “Gino, are you in there?” he called. He pressed his ear to the door, listened, and heard nothing. Again, he banged on the door. “Gino, it’s Carlo Roselli! Open the door!” he shouted. The door eased open. A blank, gray face topped by tangled hair looked out at Roselli. One sleeve of Gino’s wrinkled shirt showed stains from wiping his eyes. His cloak lay in a heap on the floor. He was barefoot. 

With his eyes downcast and his voice trembling, Gino said, “My mother died. The plague took her. I got word from my brother. The plague took her in early January. I didn’t know until now. I couldn’t even go to her funeral.” 

Roselli guided Gino to a chair. Gino held up the knitted wool cap clutched in his hand and murmured, “She gave me this when I left the farm. It’s all I have from her. She was a wonderful woman. Even though she was miles away in Pisa, I always felt she was here with me. I thought about her every day.” 

Roselli knew to console people was to deflect their thoughts. “Did the message say anything about the rest of your family?” 

“It said they are well.” 

“You can take comfort in that.” 

“But how will they get on without mother? She bound us all together.” 

Roselli said, “To you, her death just happened, but she died in early January, so your family has been getting on without her for two months. Surely it’s a struggle for them, but they are learning to cope, and in time, you will as well.” 

Gino went silent for several minutes, then looked directly at Roselli and said, “How am I going to tell my sister?” 

Roselli said, “You’ll agonize until you tell your sister, Lucia. This is a time for you both to be together. I’ll go with you. Put on a clean smock and brush your hair.” 

Gino shared memories of his mother as the two men walked to the house where Lucia worked as a housemaid. When they reached the house, Gino grasped Roselli’s arm and dismissed him, saying, “Thank you for bringing me here. I can tell Lucia.” 

Gino’s sister answered the bell at the rear entrance. Gino moved her to a bench in the hallway and sat beside her. “I have terrible news.” He placed a hand on her arm. “I got word from our brother … our mother has died.”

Lucia stared at Gino with disbelief that quickly gave way to tears. He wrapped his arms around her and let her cry until the sobbing slowed before he continued. “It was the pestilence.”

Gradually, the tears stopped, and Lucia’s thinking cleared. “Did you hear anything about our sisters? Who’s taking care of them? They can’t be left alone.”

“The barge captain who brought me the message said only that everyone else is well. If the captain can deliver a letter to our brother, we can ask about the girls." 

“I should go to Pisa to look after them. They’re too young to be left alone,” Lucia sniffled.

Gino raised a hand defiantly. “I know you’re worried about our sisters, but the plague is still strong in Pisa. You musn’t go there.


That night, Gino climbed into bed, clutching the knitted wool cap his mother had given him when he left the farm. He carried the sorrow of his mother’s death like a barb or stinger lodged in his flesh, haunted by not knowing whether she had received last rites or whether he would ever visit her grave. At the apothecary, he had spoken with many people who had suffered the loss of family members, and only a few of them had healed from their tragedy. Some tried to hide their pain, but most felt their sorrow as deeply as he did.

He spent the next day in his room. His mother appeared whenever he closed his eyes, and even in the dim candlelight, with his eyes open. He ate only a chunk of stale bread softened in a dish of water. “I should have gone to Pisa,” he berated himself. “I could have held her hand and told her how much I loved her. Her other children were with her at the end and I was not.”


 

~~~


Blurb:

Set in the 1300s during the devastating black plague, The Blackest Time is a powerful tale of compassion, love, and the human spirit’s ability to endure immense adversity.

Gino, the central character, is a young man who leaves his family’s farm to find work in a pharmacy in Florence. His experiences show us how people coped in the most horrific time in history.

Shortly after Gino arrived in the city, two years of incessant rain destroyed crops in the countryside, leading to famine and despair in the city. Gino offers hope and help to the suffering— he secures shelter for a woman forced to leave her flooded farm, rescues a young girl orphaned by the plague, and aids others who have lost everything.

The rains had barely ended when the plague hit the city, exposing the true character of its people. While some blamed others for the devastation, the story focuses on the compassionate acts of neighbors helping each other overcome fear and suffering. Doctors bravely risk infection to care for their patients. A woman healer, wrongly accused of witchcraft and driven from the city, finds a new beginning in a village where her skills were appreciated.

Despite the hardships, love blossoms between Gino and a young woman he met at the apothecary. Together they survive, finding strength in each other and hope in a world teetering on the edge.

The Blackest Time is a testament to the strength of the human spirit in overcoming unimaginable tragedy.


Praise for The Blackest Time:

“The complexities and the helplessness of the plague is captured exquisitely in The Blackest Time.”
~ The Independent Book Review

“Tentarelli’s ability to immerse readers in medieval Florence’s sights, sounds, and struggles makes this a novel worth diving into.”
~ The Literary Titan

“The historically rigorous description of the apothecary profession, including the guild that regulates it, is impressively presented by the author, whose research is impeccable.”

~ Kirkus Reviews

“This is truly an uplifting and edifying narrative of the inherent ability of mankind to rise above all the worst trials and tribulations. I enjoyed this story immensely and highly recommend it.”

~ Readers Favorite 5 star review


Buy Link: Universal Buy Link

~~~


About the Author:

Ken Tentarelli is a frequent visitor to Italy. In travels from the Alps to the southern coast of Sicily, he developed a love for its history and its people. 

He has studied Italian culture and language in Rome and Perugia, background he used in his award-winning series of historical thrillers set in the Italian Renaissance. He has taught courses in Italian history spanning time from the Etruscans to the Renaissance, and he's a strong advocate of libraries and has served as a trustee of his local library and officer of the library foundation.


Ken in Florence

When not traveling, Ken and his wife live in beautiful New Hampshire.


Connect with Ken:
Website • Facebook • BookBub • Instagram
Amazon Author Page • GoodReads