Dedicated Newsletter Marlen Bodden - 9/17/2019

International Bestselling Author of The Wedding Gift returns with Arrows of Fire, New Novel Taking Readers Inside the Conquest of Mexico

“…exceptionally entertaining and unreservedly recommended.”
– Midwest Book Review

It’s October 1519 — and the Mexican empire is on the brink.

Hernan Cortés leads an army of Spaniards and their native allies to Moctezoma’s capital. Moctezoma believes the only way to save his empire is to heed the God of War and sacrifice Flower, a beautiful woman warrior, in exchange for protection from the invaders.

But a different faction — the resistance — wants to overthrow Moctezoma and go to war against the invaders. The resistance has other plans for Flower — if they can only help her escape before Moctezoma offers her as a sacrifice. Can Flower make it out in time and join the resistance? Or will Moctezoma carry out a centuries-old practice of human sacrifice?

Told in behind-the-scenes portraits, bestselling author Marlen Bodden’s new novel, Arrows of Fire, takes the reader deep inside the bloody European conquest of Mexico, a colossal clash between powerful forces, and reveals the crack in Moctezoma’s armor – his use of human sacrifice.

In this story, Moctezoma orders his henchmen to kidnap a girl named Flower from her family and imprison her so she can learn to impersonate a warrior goddess and, unbeknown to her, ultimately be sacrificed to the God of War. Moctezoma becomes obsessed with the beautiful Flower and is torn between keeping her as a concubine or offering her to the God of War. But now Cortés nears Tenochtitlan, the Mexican capital, and Moctezoma commands Flower be brought to him to perform the human sacrifice.

Says Bodden, “Arrows of Fire unflinchingly illustrates the brutality of both Cortés and Moctezoma, but it also demonstrates the mightiness of the human spirit and the resilient power of hope.”

Marlen Suyapa Bodden is a lawyer at The Legal Aid Society in New York City – the nation’s oldest law firm for the poor – and an anti-war activist. She drew on her knowledge of modern and historical human rights abuses to write Arrows of Fire, her second novel, and The Wedding Gift, an international Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Marlen is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Tufts University. She enjoys hiking and has climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

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