The world-shattering tumult of the Protestant Reformation enters the Schneebeli household when Rudolf Schneebeli is born two months early and dies a few minutes later without being baptized. Named for the well trodden track linking the Schneebeli farmhouse to the old Lunkhofen castle, The Brothers Path is set in a Swiss village near Zürich, between 1524 and 1531. It chronicles the lives of the six Schneebeli brothers, Heinrich, Hannes, Peter, Conrad, Thomann and Andreas. Each brother navigates his own path through, around or directly into the deadly drama of the Protestant reformation. Two hundred years after the events recounted in The Brothers' Path, thousands of immigrants, mostly Mennonites and Amish, left Switzerland for America looking for safety and freedom they could not find at home. If the novel teaches a "lesson" it would be a reminder why immigrants to America were adamant about separating church and state.The Brothers Path is the second novel in the series Across the World on the Wings of the Wind, a trilogy of stand-alone novels, a family saga, spanning 500 years of the von Lunkhofen/Schneebeli family from Affoltern am Albis, Switzerland. The trilogy begins with Savior, relating Rudolf von Lunkhofen's journey on Crusade to the Holy Land in 1244 and ends with The Price that brings the Schneebeli family to America in 1743. In between is The Brothers Path in which the Schneebeli family finds itself caught up in the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation.
About the Author: Martha Kennedy has published three works of historical fiction. Her first novel, Martin of Gfenn, which tells the story of a young fresco painter living in 13th century Zürich, was awarded the Editor's Choice by the Historical Novel Society Indie Review and the BRAG Medallion from IndieBRAG in 2015. Her second novel, Savior, also an BRAG Medallion Honoree (2016), tells the story of a young man in the 13th century who fights depression by going on Crusade. Her newest novel, The Brothers Path, a loose sequel to Savior, looks at the same family three hundred years later as they find their way through the Protestant Reformation. Kennedy has also published many short-stories and articles in a variety of publications from the Denver Post to the Business Communications Quarterly. Kennedy was born in Denver, Colorado and earned her undergraduate degree in American Literature from University of Colorado, Boulder and her graduate degree in American Literature from the University of Denver. She has taught college and university writing at all levels, business communication, literature and English as a Second Language. For many years she lived in the San Diego area, most recently in Descanso, a small town in the Cuyamaca Mountains. She has recently returned to Colorado to live in Monte Vista in the San Luis Valley.