“The Cantora” – Sunday’s “New York Times Book Review” — Plus Unique Mementos for Young Adult Book Club Readers — Burns-Cole Publishers

NYT Book Review, Saturday 9-17 & Young Adult Book Club Premiums

NEW YORK – Sept. 12, 2017 – PRLog — The Cantora (The Native Singer of Colonial Brazil) is both a Young Adult and Adult novel with some parallels to The Book Thief. Recent Young Adult book club interest has prompted the publisher to provide free wristband and sticker premiums to YA book club readers. Additionally, readers can capture images from the novel’s website using the link http://thecantora.com/downloads/ to decorate personal apparel items such as the T-shirts shown in the photo display.

An additional and truly unusual aspect of The Cantora milieu is that it has a “theme song.” It is the beautiful rendition of the thousand-year-old ballad Hvem Kan Seile as sung by Julie Larson. One can hear it on the novel’s website via the link http://thecantora.com/about/. According to the author Paul Cohn in his Acknowledgements, “…captures the many moods of this novel, and even that of Cantora herself—as the reader will discover in Chapter 42.”

The Cantora provides compelling and historical perspectives of Brazil, North Africa and Europe in the early 1500s. The narrative portrays life with the native tribes of Brazil and on sugar plantations, then voyages to the Caribbean, and later across the Atlantic to Africa and Europe. Every setting is different— Food, dress, social conduct, religion, culture, and of course the people. All this is intermingled with the unique and little-known history of the time, and many reviewers have hailed this novel an outstanding read.
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… It all began with a rumor: an Indian girl who sang with the voice of an angel. A tiny girl, perhaps only nine years old. No one believed it at first, but the rumor persisted. Finally one day a runner arrived bringing news… And so the journey of the woman and the girl–Sister Mãe da Doçura and Yema, the Caeté Indian child acclaimed as The Cantora–begins to unfold as perilous circumstance compels them to become agents of fate, changing the destinies of all who cross their path …
The setting for The Cantora is coastal Brazil during the early 1500s, in the colonial town of Luís, a shipping port for the brutal and lucrative dyewood trade. Many Indians and Africans are enslaved at the port, and the Indians, afflicted with European diseases, are perishing by the hundreds.

A village priest discovers an Indian child with a magical voice, and he allows her to sing the Latin Mass. The regional bishop assigns the girl to Sister Doçura with the intention of making the child singer a ward of the Church. The child is also treasured by her tribe as a mystical Tuguy Kuna (Blood Woman).

The bishop summons The Vatican’s Consilium de Virtutibus (The Council of Miracles) to certify Yema as a The First True Miracle of The New World, but when wfv an Indian rebellion breaks out, the Council accuses the nun and child of heresy and condemns them to death as Doçura and Yema are forced to flee for their lives…
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Headlines for The Cantora (Editorial and Early Book Reviews)

“The Cantora, an utterly transporting reading experience…immensely skilled setting and scene building… Brazil during the 1500s–a vivid life for the reader.” —Carina Guiterman, Editor, Little, Brown & Company Publishers

“The Cantora – The Symphony of  Words Continues … Musical… Beautiful… Complex” —Dr. Justin A. Frank, M.D., New York Times Bestselling Author of Bush on the Couch, & the Upcoming Trump on the Couch

“If You Enjoyed The Book Thief, You Will Fall In Love With Cantora” —Hailey Zwanzig, Illustrator, Left Hand Tree by Jay Gunter”

“A Lyrically Stunning Novel… A 16th Century Jackie Evancho. 5-Stars!” —Justin Haldeman, Author of the forthcoming novel The Duke’s Jubilee

“The Cantora – “Most Likely The Best Young Adult Novel Published This Year,” —Thomas F. Rau, Ph.D., Amazon & Goodreads

“My Nomination For Best Jewish Book Of The Year” —Nicole Brauch, Goodreads & Amazon
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For additional information, the following links are available:
Amazon Product Page: http://amzn.to/2tZt9yi.
The Cantora Website: http://thecantora.com/.
         (Including an Email the Author link)
Smashwords Product Page: http://bit.ly/2mN8f2J.
         (All digital Formats)
The Cantora Facebook Page: http://bit.ly/2pPIG1u.
The Cantora Goodreads Page: http://bit.ly/2nXwPlF.
São Tomé Product Page: http://amzn.to/16BQsgw,
         (The Prequel to The Cantora)
Rapto em Lisboa Product Page: http://bit.ly/JZEDaP,
         (Portuguese Edition of São Tomé)
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About Author Paul D. Cohn: In addition to the first novel São Tomé, Paul Cohn is published  overseas with the Portuguese edition Rapto em Lisboa by Medialivros/DIFEL in Lisbon. His short stories have appeared in the Huffington Post, The BoZone Monthly, The Big Sky Weekly, and Writers of the Gulch. He authored The Toolbox, a children’s adventure radio series (Treehouse Corner), broadcast on KGLT Public Radio. His short story, São Tomé, won Honorable Mention in Moment Magazine’s Karma Short Story Contest He has also been a guest instructor at many adult-education writing classes. His career began in nuclear engineering where he managed projects for Rockwell and Battelle Memorial Institute, and ran his own consulting business, Energy Engineering Associates. Mr. Cohn has a B.S. in chemical engineering, and an M.S. in nuclear engineering, and is the author of over 50 technical papers, journal articles, and book chapters. In addition to the above, Mr. Cohn is also the Founding Investor of Wintermute Biomedical, a med-tech startup with a topical cure for MRSA that completely blocks antibiotic resistance. This topical medicine, Solexan®,is currently working its way through the US FDA’s Investigative New Drug program. See http://wintermutebiomedical.com
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Editor’s note: Interested publishers in Brazil and Portugal are welcome to contact the author via http://thecantora.com/ to discuss a Portuguese language edition. Film and/or TV series interests are also encouraged to apply.

Contact
Paul D. Cohn