Luther in Love

Luther in Love opens on a frigid night at the Augustinian cloister in Wittenberg, Katharina von Bora Luther bent over her candle writing something, trying to keep it from her husband’s eyes. The story unfolds memoir-esque from Katie’s perspective, breaking into clusters of chapters in third person, then back to Katie from time to time throughout the biographical novel. How does an apostate nun live with an apostate monk, and such a monk? There is a giant in the land, and the giant is Luther: bold, bombastic, fearless, vitriolic to his opponents, given to dark bouts of depression and self-doubt, unwashed, unkempt, plagued by a painful and reoccurring bowel disorder, and nothing short of brilliant. How does a young woman (Katie was 26 when she married 42 year-old Luther) who had not been around men since she was 5 years old, how does she live with such a man? Luther in Love will explore these questions in the context of the dynamic unfolding story of Luther and the Reformation in Germany, and will focus particular attention, as Luther does, on the sanctifying influence of Christian marriage, the school of character.