The Master of All Desires by Judith Merkle Riley

The trouble is finding someone to help her in such a task. Her husband dotes on her and when she asks for a scribe, someone to take down her life’s story, he happily obliges. She’s married to a rich merchant and, seemingly, has everything she could want. Margaret of Ashbury Trilogy – A Vision of Light, In Pursuit of the Green Lion, and The Water DevilĪ Vision of Light (1988) – This book centers around a young housewife living in medieval London. She also always has a bit of a romantic sub-plot to her novels which I appreciate. The first of her novels, A Vision of Light, was published 1988 when she was 46 years old.Ī common thread throughout all her works is the strength of her female protagonists, navigating societies that are not meant for them, facing their struggles with practicality, wit, and often a good deal of humor. Judith Merkle Riley published six novels, three in her Margaret of Ashbury series, and three stand-alone works.

When asked how she became interested in writing historical novels she answered, “I was pushing 50 and ready to try new things, the women’s movement appeared to be withering on the vine, and I thought the spark could be kept alive with accurate woman-centered historical novels.” Oh, Judith. Here’s a great interview from 2007 with Judith about her books and writing process archived over at The Word Wenches. Merkle Riley passed away in September of 2010 from ovarian cancer at the age of 68. Her daughter Elizabeth works in the publishing industry. She married and had two children, a daughter and a son. She also taught at the University of Oregon for a decade through most of the 70’s and was the director of the Russian and East European Studies Center her last year there in 1982. from UC Berkeley in Political Science and later teaching at Claremont McKenna College in the Government department–although she did spend time back on the East Coast obtaining at her master’s degree in Soviet Regional Studies at Harvard. She seems to have lived on the West Coast for much of her life–attaining a Ph. She was born in Maine in 1942 as Judith Astria Merkle but grew up in California. So glad I did because she quickly became one of my favorite authors and has remained so to this day.

I stumbled across Riley’s works back in the 90’s at my local library when I was going through my Anne Rice obsession and the cover of The Oracle Glass caught my eye and made me take a closer look. However, all of her works do include elements of the supernatural/the occult/fantasy, so I feel like I’m not off-base by bringing up her writing here as they are very much speculative fiction in that sense. Judith Merkle Riley is not known as a fantasy writer, but an author of historical fiction.

You can check out more of the Author Appreciation series here. This originally appeared as part of the Author Appreciation series on the r/fantasy forum.

The Master of All Desires by Judith Merkle Riley