Cavanila's Choices: A Novel of the Minoan Cataclysm

"An intriguing debut in a well-drawn ancient setting..."-Kirkus Reviews". "Cavanila's Choices creatively imagines the cataclysmic eruption on the Greek island of Thera (known today as Santorini) and its consequences over 3,000 years ago...it shines a light on a historic episode..." Historical Novels Society Reviews The explosion of the Santorini (Thera) volcano in the 17th century B.C.E., one of the greatest natural disasters on earth in the last 10,000 years, left behind at least two great mysteries. Unlike Pompeii, no bodies and few valuables have been found in the excavated ruins of that once thriving, ancient trading center. Still unsolved is the question of what happened to all those missing people. Secondly, the Minoan civilization that was centered on Crete (Kephtor) 60 miles to Santorini’s south, one of the most artistic, technically advanced, and powerful civilizations of the time apparently died out some time later in the aftermath of that explosion. Was it due to the direct effects of that explosion, to a resulting famine, to social disorder and insurrection, to invasion by an external power, or to all of the above? This fictional account offers an approach to these questions and, further, speculations of what it might have been like for those who survived (or didn’t survive) that catastrophe. It is a story about Cavanila, a young priestess, who is suddenly tasked with saving her people from the cascade of events that surrounded that explosion. She risks her self respect and even her life as she struggles against her king, a murderous high priestess and even, at times, her lover who commanded Minoa’s fighting fleet. Not surprisingly, the political, social and economic problems she had to face and live through in that ancient world were little different from what often occurs following major, natural and man-made disasters even of today.