The year is 1626. A senseless war rips through parts of Germany. Ongoing animosity between the Catholics and the Protestants has turned into an excuse to destroy much of the landscape situated between France, Italy and Denmark. But religion only plays a minor role in this lucrative business of war.
The young dutchman, Pieter van Diemen, returns to Amsterdam in chains after a period of imprisonment in the Spice Islands. He manages to escape but must leave Amsterdam in a hurry. Soldiers are in demand in Germany and he decides to travel with a regiment until he can desert. His hope of survival is to reach Sichardtshof, the farm in Franconia, Germany; the farm he left ten years ago. His desire to seek refuge with them lies in his fond memories of the maid Katarina and her master, the humanist patrician Herr Tucher. But ten years is a long time and the farm has changed. Franconia is not only torn by war but falling victim to a church-driven witch hunt. The Jesuit priest, Ralf, has his sights set on Sichardtshof as well. Ralf believes that ridding the area of evil will be his saving grace. Can Pieter, Katarina and Herr Tucher unite to fight against a senseless war out of control?
The Soldier’s Return is the second book in the Heaven’s Pond Trilogy.
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Inspiration behind the Heaven’s Pond trilogy
by Laura Libricz
On May 23, 1618, Protestant noblemen threw four Catholic lords out of a Prague Castle office window. The Catholic lords survived, supposedly having fallen into a dung heap. This year, four hundred years later, historians are celebrating the anniversary of that incident called the Defenestration of Prague, considered to be the beginning of the Thirty Years War. Deemed a war between the Catholics and the Protestants, all of those involved suffered torment and agony. One third of the German population succumbed during the war. They died either on the battle field, were murdered as innocents or perished from resulting diseases and hunger.
For centuries, reformers had been known to protest the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church, their worldly rule and abuse of power and money. In the early 1400’s, the preacher Jan Hus from Prague spoke out openly against the church and its decadence. Bohemian aristocracy supported Hus, even after he was excommunicated. Although he had their support, he was executed in 1415, burned at the stake by the German king Sigismund.
One hundred years later, Martin Luther set out to reform the Catholic Church as well. He was not intending to create a new one. The famed story reads that he nailed a document called the 95 Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg in 1517. The main points of the Theses disputed and condemned the practice of the church selling indulgences to people in order to insure their souls’ entrance to heaven. This famous incident is credited to be the birth of Protestantism. Last year, 2017 marked the 500-year anniversary of that famous incident.
