SCRIBE: The Story of the Only Female Pope
A Brilliant Historical Novel
Hugo N. Gerstl
The monastery at Siani was famous throughout the academic world for its library. The monks of medieval days routinely obtained ancient, crumbling manuscripts and recopied them. Among them, hidden in a wall in the cellar, the following parchment was found and faithfully recopied in the practiced hand of the Sianian monks several centuries after its original writing:
“According to the official Catalogue of Popes, after the Holy Father Leo IV died in the Year of Our Lord, Eight hundred fifty-five, he was succeeded by Pope Benedict III.
I, Martin Paschal, swear upon my eternal soul that the Catalogue lies. Leo died on the twentieth day of June, eight hundred fifty-four, and to him succeeded John, who was a woman, who sat on the Papal Throne for two years, five months, and four days…”
This is not the first time that the sensational enigma of the legendary female Pope has been explored, but this version is different from all others in that it treats its characters with the seriousness and depth they deserve, while telling an epic story of Europe in the throes of birth in the darkest of the Dark Ages.
The author, Hugo N. Gerstl, has been a nationally known trial lawyer for 38 years and is presently senior partner of Gerstl & Hudson in Monterey, California. Along the way, he served as an Air Force attorney in such diverse locations as Arizona and Turkey, where he twice won the Air Force Commendation Medal. The author was a licensed pilot and flew his own plane for 14 (happy) years.
Hugo Gerstl has produced and been involved in over 40 commercially released recordings, including three hit records, and he also acted in and directed over twenty stage productions. From 1996 to 2001, he was president and managing director of a mid-size publishing house specializing in cookery and travel books. Since 2001, he has served as chief executive officer of Four Paws Press, a pet-oriented travel publisher.
A Portuguese-language edition was published in Summer 2006 and a Czech edition was published by Motto/Albatros in Summer 2011.
An E-book English-language edition for Amazon's Kindle & Apple's i-Pad was published in April 2011 by SWS Inc., CA.
560 pages, 15X22.5 cm
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