In 1974, the Vögelin Institute in Switzerland summons Dr. Karl van der Saar, a linguist specializing in dangerous and forgotten languages, to investigate a growing crisis in its archives. Manuscripts are warping, enchantments unraveling, and scholars dying. The cause is rumored to be the Glass Tongue—a living, recursive language that unravels minds, adapts to readers, and feeds on intent.
Karl quickly realizes he is not alone. He is joined by Tadgh, a mysterious, otherworldly figure bound to the language through a tragic past, and Talia, a sharp-tongued fae companion who both protects and chastises him. Their work soon attracts the attention of Leontine, an emissary from the Zürich court, and other fae courts across Europe. All recognize the danger: the Glass Tongue is not simply a language but a living prison and a weapon, one that remembers those who once spoke it.
As Karl struggles to decode the shifting script, he discovers it doesn’t just communicate—it tests, feeds, and rewrites thought itself. Meanwhile, Tadgh’s past is revealed: centuries earlier, in Ragusa, his fractured fae-strigoii nature unleashed the Glass Tongue into the world. Ever since, it has marked him as its “king,” remembering his voice and seeking him out.
The investigation spirals into court politics. Emissaries from Vienna, Paris, and Zürich vie to control or suppress the language, while Karl teeters on the edge of obsession, writing in symbols even he doesn’t recall. Tadgh, torn between hunger, memory, and responsibility, must face the choice of embracing the Glass Tongue to be made whole—or rejecting it and remaining broken.
In the climactic confrontation, Tadgh chooses brokenness over dominion, shattering a shard of the language that once bound him. Though this prevents its immediate resurgence, the courts remain restless, and Karl and Tadgh know the Glass Tongue still lingers, waiting to be spoken again.
The story closes with the trio—Karl, Tadgh, and Talia—bound together by loyalty and shared danger, aware that the language is not gone, only sleeping. The Glass Tongue remembers its kings.
The candlelight flickered as it was moved through the chambers and corridors, casting shadows on the intricately carved and heavy wood-panelling of the walls and on the heavy oak furnishings of the privy council’s assembly hall. The light did not waver; the hand that carried the candle did not hesitate. The man carrying it did not do so for his own benefit; he knew this chamber and his destination both very well, better than anyone in the realm, including the man he came seeking. He held the candle out of consideration for the woman he was bringing to meet the king.
“I cannot stress too highly the importance of the task that I am placing into your hands Agnes, but I trust that you will not disappoint me. No one must know!”
PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE NON-FICTION AND FICTION GENRES
The Radical Reformation and the Crisis of Europe, c.1520-50
When I set out to write this history of the Radical Reformation in the sixteenth century, I knew it would require more than simply cataloging events or recounting theological debates. My aim is to place readers directly into the ferment of the Reformation era—a time when the authority of the Catholic Church was being challenged, and when the search for a purer form of Christianity led to both profound religious renewal and violent upheaval.
I begin by situating the Radical Reformation within the wider Reformation of the sixteenth century. Figures such as Martin Luther and John Calvin are often the starting points for the story, with their critiques of indulgences, clerical abuses, and the entanglement of church and state. But I want to move beyond the familiar, to show how humanism, printing, nationalism, and the pervasive longing for spiritual authenticity opened the way for a much more radical set of reformers.
What I call the “Radical Reformation” refers to those movements that broke with both Catholic tradition and mainstream Protestantism. While Luther and Calvin sought reform within established structures, others—Anabaptists, Hutterites, Mennonites, Spiritualists, and Anti-Trinitarians—pressed for a complete reimagining of Christian faith and practice. They rejected infant baptism, emphasized adult believers’ baptism, often called for separation of church and state, and sometimes adopted pacifism or communal living as expressions of their faith.
These groups were far from uniform. Some remained peaceful and committed to nonviolence, while others, such as the leaders of the Münster Rebellion, embraced apocalyptic violence. I will explore this diversity: the communal faith of the Hutterites, the prophetic radicalism of Thomas Müntzer during the German Peasants’ War, the intellectual challenges posed by Michael Servetus, and the steadfast endurance of martyrs like Felix Manz.
Geography plays an important role in this story as well. Switzerland, Germany, the Low Countries, and Moravia became crucibles of radical experimentation. Persecution forced many into exile, and from there, their ideas spread widely—some eventually reaching North America, where descendants of these groups, like Mennonites and Amish, continue to bear witness to the Radical Reformation’s enduring legacy.
Part of what fascinates me is how these radicals were opposed not only by Catholic authorities but also by fellow Protestants. Luther and Calvin, far from embracing them as allies, denounced them as heretics and threats to order. Their rejection underscores the distance between the “magisterial” and “radical” wings of the Reformation.
In this book, I argue that the Radical Reformation deserves a more prominent place in our understanding of early modern history. Its emphasis on religious freedom, the separation of church and state, and the dignity of personal conviction resonates far beyond its own century. The legacy of these movements can be traced in later traditions, from Baptists and Quakers to Enlightenment thought.
My approach is both theological and social. I draw on a range of sources—sermons, letters, court records, and martyrologies—to illuminate not only what the radicals believed, but also how they lived, how they were persecuted, and how they imagined a world transformed by their faith. I also give attention to the role of women, the place of millenarian expectation, and the ways small communities navigated the crushing pressures of church and state authority.
This work is, in many ways, an attempt to restore voices that have too often been marginalized in histories of the Reformation. By telling their stories, I hope to show how the Radical Reformation was not a mere footnote, but a vital, disruptive force whose impact continues to shape the religious and cultural landscape of our world today.
The Spiral Accord is a mythic espionage thriller where memory is weapon, belief is currency, and stories refuse to stay buried. After a classified metaphysical rupture known as The Kingstone Event, the UK’s secretive Mythological Integration Unit struggles to contain the fallout—ritual magic, Fae contact, and narrative phenomena that won’t stay archived. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Dr. Karl van der Saar, a linguist and reluctant occultist, stumbles upon a hidden bookshop in New Orleans that bends reality and prophecy around him. As ancient names resurface—James Twice Born, Tanéka Low Born, and the whispering voice of Erasmi—the boundaries between myth and modernity collapse. Haunted agents, immortal strigoii, and fractured institutions orbit a growing realization: the story isn’t over. It’s waking up. Structured through dossiers, rituals, and dream-logic fragments, The Spiral Accord is the first book in a genre-bending saga exploring what happens when myth remembers us back.
