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Review: A Prisoner in Malta by Phillip DePoy
Someone is plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth. The Queen’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has changed the nineteen year old Christopher Marlowe with tracking down the truth of this impending threat. The only thing anyone knows for sure is there is a prisoner who has information about the plot and Walsingham feels sure that Marlowe can rescue the prisoner and discover what there is to know about the threat. Christopher Marlowe has quite the reputation….he’s known as a brawler, womanizer, genius, and social upstart at Cambridge. His investigation will take him through a treacherous world of Catholic sympathizers, the Spanish government, and double agents…..this isn’t going to be an open and…
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Review: Médicis Daughter: A Novel of Marguerite de Valois by Sophie Perinot
Catherine de Medicis is one of my most favorite queens in history. I’ve read a lot of books on her…..I mean how could you not admire her in some ways? She was about as cutthroat and unapologetic as they come which I kind of admire in some of history’s most famous queens. Her name is notorious so when this book came across my nightstand for review, I jumped on it. While it is not about Catherine herself necessarily, it’s about the Medicis so that was enough for me! Plus I don’t know much about her children, just about her, so I was really interested in reading this one. Princess Margot…
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Special Feature: THE ALL SOULS REAL TIME READING COMPANION by Deborah Harkness is FREE on Amazon
As many of you know, I am a huge fan of the All Soul’s books! I’ve read all of the books and was sad to see the series come to an end….as I am sure many of you are as well. However, I have good news! On Tuesday, November 17th, Penguin is releasing a FREE, e-book only, richly illustrated real-time reading guide that brings to life the world created by Deborah Harkness in A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night, retracing the events of these two bestselling novels with illuminating behind-the-scenes details and real-life events that figure into the books. It’s available for pre-order now. The All Souls Trilogy…
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Review: War of the Roses: Margaret of Anjou by Conn Iggulden
War is coming….or is it winter? This is the book that inspired the wildly popular A Song of Ice and Fire series (AKA Game of Thrones). This latest book in the War of the Roses series was a constant action sequence. I haven’t read the first book in the series and that did put me at a bit of a disadvantage because I didn’t fully understand the relationships between some of the characters but I do know my British history so it didn’t take too long to get situated in the story. the year is 1454 and King Henry VI has remained all but exiled in Windsor Castle, struck down…
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Review: The Tapestry (Joanna Stafford #3) by Nancy Bilyeau
Joanna Stafford is still struggling to adjust to life in the sleepy town of Dartford. Once a novice nun, but now….not, thanks to King Henry VIII, Joanna is content weaving her tapestries at her home. The sudden disappearance of her would be husband, Edmund Scovill, has left Joanna upset and confused (not to mention the reader!) but she is resolved to continue her work on her tapestries far from the English court. Well, her weaving has caught the attention of the King. When a royal summons from Whitehall comes, demanding Joanna’s presence at court, she can hardly refuse the royal order. When she arrives at court, she is literally attacked instantly by an…
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Review: The Tudor Vendetta (The Spymaster Chronicles #3) by C.W. Gortner
Tudor lit is always a favorite sub genre for those who write historic fiction. And why not, it’s a ruthless age full of romance, intrigue, and political unrest. There is a lot for authors to draw inspiration. One of the things I love best about C.W. Gortner as a writer is he tends to pick strong women in history to write about which is unusual for a male author. I think having a male write about these women provides readers with a unique perspective. In this novel he utilized a male as the POV character which was different but no less entertaining. Queen Mary is dead and the young Elizabeth takes the throne. One…
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Review: Tempting Fate (The Immortal Descendants #2) by April White
Since discovering her power as a ‘clocker’, or an Immortal Descendant, life for Saira Elian hasn’t gotten much easier. Being a clocker means Saira can transport herself through time at will. She is currently living at St. Brigid’s school where she is learning about her power as well as the powers of the other Descendants. For the first time in her life she is stable: she has friends, her mother, excelling in school, and her super attractive boyfriend, Archer who happens to be Death’s Descendant–better known as a Sucker, or vampire. But she is struggling with what it means to rely on others and to truly open her heart to her friends…
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Review: The Lost Duchess by Jenny Barden
We all know there is a ton of historical fiction out there that takes place in Elizabethan England….typically in the court. The market is simply flooded…so how do you create a new and different take on a saturated topic? Well you take your Elizabethan heroine out of the court! Emme Fifield is a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth. Her life is pretty much wrapped up in the treacherous court and all she has is a good reputation and name. Well all that changes when she is ruined by a lord who will stop it nothing but to have her. Her reputation and future prospects are a disaster.
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Book Blast: The Lost Duchess by Jenny Barden
Please join author Jenny Barden as she tours the blogopsphere for The Lost Duchess from May 26-June 20. Paperback Publication Date: June 5, 2014 Ebury Press Paperback; 448p An epic Elizabethan adventure with a thriller pace and a high tension love story that moves from the palaces of England to the savage wilderness of the New World. Emme Fifield has fallen about as far as a gentlewoman can. Once a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, her only hope of surviving the scandal that threatens to engulf her is to escape England for a fresh start in the new America where nobody has ever heard of the Duchess of Somerset. Emme joins…
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Review: Dark Aemilia: A Novel of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady by Sally O’Reilly
The story of Aemilia Bassono and William Shakespeare is wrought with passion, love, poetry, and a little magic. While the story is about both William and Aemilia, the main protagonist of the novel is Aemilia herself. She is an illegitimate child raised in the court of Queen Elizabeth. She was taken in by the Countess of Kent who made sure she was educated and prepared to eventually become part of the Queen’s household. While at court she becomes the mistress to Henry Carey but when he tires of he she is married off to Alfonso Lanyer–a lowly court musician. But not before she meets William and begins an affair with…