The Candlemaker’s Woman

Based on true events, a traumatic story of mass migration as relevant today as it has been since humans walked out of Africa.

Desperately fleeing murderous Huns in old Germania, the Suevi sell Melia, a girl on the cusp of womanhood, into slavery, hoping to bribe their way into Gaul. Caught in the middle of the chaotic diaspora, Melia survives the cruelty of her owner, a candlemaker, and excels at making beautiful tapers and votives. She falls in love and plans an escape.

But when the Suevi storm across the frozen Rhine at midnight, New Years Eve, AD406, with thousands of other barbarians, Melia’s life is ripped apart again. Reunited with her family in the calamitous invasion, she is called upon to use her skills and cunning to save them from warring Franks. But will she ever recover the love of her life, the father of her son?

Her story imagines how one family, forced from their home by violence and hunger, endures one of the most disruptive and transformative events in history.