I'm very pleased to say that A Slender Tether, a novel in linked stories, is now available as an audio book in a number of places, including the free library site Hoopla. In celebration, I thought I would outline the ways that the tethers in our lives, ties that bind us or secure us and the threads between us, appear in the book and what they say about the human condition.
In "Raptor Among Bluebirds"
A connection about to break: In "Raptor Among Bluebirds" the father of Christine de Pizan is confronted with his own pending death and remarks that "unable to heal her husband on his deathbed, a wife will sew a leather tie, a slender tether, on his doublet" as a futile attempt to reinforce a connection that is about to break.
A tether to prosperity or the strings of puppets: Christine's mother her mother sends granddaughter away to a convent with the princess. "I've done us a great service!" Tessa insisted. She strode around the room, gesturing with expansive arms, and Christine heard snatches of logic that it would tie them to the court and position them well, but to Christine her mother was engaged in her profession, bartering with the lives of others." Pg. 63