Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Upcoming Royal Historical Fiction

Warriors of the Storm (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 9) by Bernard Cornwell

UK Release Date: 8 October, 2015
US Release Date: January 19, 2016


King Alfred’s son Edward and formidable daughter, Æthelflaed, rule Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. But all around the restless Northmen, eyeing the rich lands and wealthy churches, are mounting raids.

Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the kingdoms’ greatest warrior, controls northern Mercia from the strongly fortified city of Chester. But forces are rising up against him. Northmen allied to the Irish, led by the fierce warrior Ragnall Ivarson, are soon joined by the Northumbrians, and their strength could prove overwhelming. Despite the gathering threat, both Edward and Æthelflaed are reluctant to move out of the safety of their fortifications. But with Uhtred’s own daughter married to Ivarson’s brother, who can be trusted?

In the struggle between family and loyalty, between personal ambition and political commitment, there will be no easy path. But a man with a warrior’s courage may be able to find it. Such a man is Uhtred,and this may be his finest hour.



Sisi: Empress on Her Own; A Novel by Allison Pataki

US Release Date: March 8, 2016
UK Release Date: 21 June 2016


In imperial Vienna, where the court halls buzzed with waltzes and champagne, as well as temptation, rivals, and cutthroat intrigue, the intensely personal tale of Empress Sisi unraveled. Infamously beautiful, a mother of four, and wife of Emperor Franz Joseph - whom she unintentionally stole away from her sister - Sisi's reign was anything but simple. Against the backdrop of a rich, romantic, and volatile time period--marked by pivotal events such as the opening of the Suez Canal, Vienna's World Exhibition, and the lead up to WWI--Sisi, the beloved "Fairy Queen," was a woman well ahead of her time during a true Golden Age in European history.




The Queen's Choice by Anne O'Brien

UK Release Date: 14 January 2016
US Release Date: TBA


Joanna of Navarre knows her place in society. And defies it. Forthright, unemotional and politically minded, she is more than a match for the men in the court of Brittany. And when she inherits control of her lands after her husband's death, it's a testament to her intellect and loyal duty.

Then comes an unexpected proposal – marriage to Henry IV, King of England. The price? Abandoning her homeland. Leaving her children. And sacrificing her independence.

Henry's hold on the crown is unsteady and war is brewing. Crossing the channel is a dangerous prospect. If Joanna's pride will allow it, this could be a chance to unite two nations.

But pride comes before a fall, and there are many who conspire to watch Joanna tumble from the English throne…



The Leopards of Normandy: Duke: Leopards of Normandy 2 by David Churchill

Release Date: April 2, 2016


David Churchill's The Leopards of Normandy trilogy continues with Duke, as William of Normandy inherits his father's title and assumes command of his lands. Churchill's style brings to mind the vibrancy of Conn Iggulden and will enthral fans of Bernard Cornwell and Ben Kane.

Friday, September 25, 2015

Spotlight: The Sisters of Versailles (Mistresses of Versailles, Book One) by Sally Christie

Publication Date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Atria Books/Simon & Schuster
Formats: Ebook, Paperback Pages: 432
ISBN-10: 1501102966
Genre: Historical Fiction

READ AN EXCERPT.

  Add to GR Button  

A sumptuous and sensual tale of power, romance, family, and betrayal centered around four sisters and one King. Carefully researched and ornately detailed, The Sisters of Versailles is the first book in an exciting new historical fiction trilogy about King Louis XV, France's most "well-beloved" monarch, and the women who shared his heart and his bed.

Goodness, but sisters are a thing to fear.

Set against the lavish backdrop of the French Court in the early years of the 18th century, The Sisters of Versailles is the extraordinary tale of the five Nesle sisters: Louise, Pauline, Diane, Hortense, and Marie-Anne, four of whom became mistresses to King Louis XV. Their scandalous story is stranger than fiction but true in every shocking, amusing, and heartbreaking detail.

Court intriguers are beginning to sense that young King Louis XV, after seven years of marriage, is tiring of his Polish wife. The race is on to find a mistress for the royal bed as various factions put their best foot - and women - forward. The King's scheming ministers push Louise, the eldest of the aristocratic Nesle sisters, into the arms of the King. Over the following decade, the four sisters:sweet, naive Louise; ambitious Pauline; complacent Diane, and cunning Marie Anne, will conspire, betray, suffer, and triumph in a desperate fight for both love and power.

In the tradition of The Other Boleyn Girl, The Sisters of Versailles is a clever, intelligent, and absorbing novel that historical fiction fans will devour. Based on meticulous research on a group of women never before written about in English, Sally Christie's stunning debut is a complex exploration of power and sisterhood; of the admiration, competition, and even hatred that can coexist within a family when the stakes are high enough.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“A stunning breadth of period detail, offered in a fresh, contemporary voice.” —Juliet Grey, author of the acclaimed Marie Antoinette trilogy

"Sally Christie's The Sisters of Versailles is an intriguing romp through Louis XV's France. Filled with lush backdrops, rich detail, and colorful characters, fans of historical fiction will enjoy this glimpse into the lost golden era of the French monarchy." – Allison Pataki, author of The Accidental Empress

AMAZON US | AMAZON CAN | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKS-A-MILLION | CHAPTERS | ITUNES | INDIEBOUND | KOBO


04_Sally Christie_Author ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I'm a life-long history buff - and I mean life-long. One of the first adult books I read was Antonia Fraser's masterful Mary, Queen of Scots. Wow! That book just blew my little ten year old mind: something about the way it brought the past right back to life, made it live again on the page. I date my obsession with history to that time, but I'd been writing ("writing") ever since I was able to hold a pencil. 

If you'd told my 12-year old self that I'd not be a writer when I grew up, I would have laughed you out of the tree house. With a few detours along the way, to work overseas in consulting and development, as well as to go to business school, I've finally come full circle to where I think I should be.

I currently live in Toronto and when I'm not writing, I'm playing lots of tennis; doing random historical research (old census records are my favorite); playing Scrabble, and squirrel-watching (the room where I write has French doors leading out to a deck; I avidly follow, and feed, a scruffy gang). 

For more information please visit Sally Christie's website. You can also find her on Goodreads and Pinterest.

BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

Monday, September 14
Review at Reading the Past

Tuesday, September 15
Review at Book Lovers Paradise
Interview & Giveaway at Mina's Bookshelf

Wednesday, September 16
Review at Bookish

Thursday, September 17
Review at The Book Binder's Daughter

Friday, September 18
Review & Giveaway at The True Book Addict
Review at History From a Woman's Perspective

Saturday, September 19
Spotlight at Romantic Historical Reviews

Monday, September 21
Review at Leeanna.me

Tuesday, September 22
Spotlight at Historical Fiction Connection

Wednesday, September 23
Review & Giveaway at History Undressed

Thursday, September 24
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Friday, September 25
Spotlight at Historical Readings & Views

Monday, September 28
Review & Giveaway at View From the Birdhouse

Tuesday, September 29
Review at So Many Books, So Little Time

Thursday, October 1
Review at Genre Queen
Review at bookramblings

Friday, October 2
Review at Curling Up By the Fire

Monday, October 5
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews

Tuesday, October 6
Review at Just One More Chapter

Wednesday, October 7
Review at The Lit Bitch

Thursday, October 8
Interview & Giveaway at Reading Lark

Friday, October 9
Review & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Obsession

05_The Sisters of Versailles_Blog Tour Banner_FINAL

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Ebook Deals

Click the cover to view and buy the book in the Kindle store. While I only post links to the Kindle store, often times you can find the same titles on sale at other stores.

Disclaimer: Ebook prices are subject to change anytime. I can only promise they are under a certain price at the time I post them.

US Kindle Deals, fiction under $4, non-fiction under $6:

                       



UK Kindle Deals, fiction under £3, non-fiction under £4:

                     

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Upcoming Royal History Books

Playing catch up so there's a lot...

The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas by Alison Weir

UK Release Date: October 1, 2015
US Release Date: January 12, 2016


Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Her mother was a queen, her father an earl, and she herself was the granddaughter, niece, cousin and grandmother of monarchs. Some thought she should be queen of England. She ranked high at the court of her uncle, Henry VIII, and was lady of honour to five of his wives. Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal, not just once, but twice, by falling in love with unsuitable men. Fortunately, the marriage arranged for her turned into a love match.

Throughout her life her dynastic ties to two crowns proved hazardous. A born political intriguer, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London on three occasions, once under sentence of death. She helped to bring about one of the most notorious royal marriages of the sixteenth century, but it brought her only tragedy. Her son and her husband were brutally murdered, and there were rumours that she herself was poisoned. She warred with two queens, Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth of England. A brave survivor, she was instrumental in securing the Stuart succession to the throne of England for her grandson.



Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years by John Guy

Release Date: May 3, 2016


Elizabeth was crowned at twenty-five after a tempestuous childhood as a bastard and an outcast, but it was only when she reached fifty and all hopes of a royal marriage were dashed that she began to wield real power in her own right. For twenty-five years she had struggled to assert her authority over advisers who pressed her to marry and settle the succession; now, she was determined not only to reign but also to rule. In this magisterial biography of England's most ambitious Tudor queen, John Guy introduces us to a woman who is refreshingly unfamiliar: at once powerful and vulnerable, willful and afraid. In these essential and misunderstood forgotten years, Elizabeth confronts challenges at home and abroad: war against the Catholic powers of France and Spain, revolt in Ireland, an economic crisis that triggered riots in the streets of London, and a conspiracy to place her cousin Mary Queen of Scots on her throne. For a while she was smitten by a much younger man, but could she allow herself to act on that passion and still keep her throne?



Frederick the Great: King of Prussia by Tim Blanning

UK Release Date: September 24, 2015
US Release Date: March 29, 2016


Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, dominated the 18th century in the same way that Napoleon dominated the start of the 19th - a force of nature, a caustic, ruthless, brilliant military commander, a monarch of exceptional energy and talent, and a knowledgeable patron of artists, architects and writers, most famously Voltaire. From early in his reign he was already a legendary figure - fascinating even to those who hated him. Tim Blanning's brilliant new biography recreates a remarkable era, a world which would be swept away shortly after Frederick's death by the French Revolution. Equally at home on the battlefield or in the music room at Frederick's extraordinary miniature palace of Sanssouci, Blanning draws on a lifetime's obsession with the 18th century to create a work that is in many ways the summation of all that he has learned in his own rich and various career. Frederick's spectre has hung over Germany ever since: an inspiration, a threat, an impossible ideal - Blanning at last allows us to understand him in his own time.



The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of Russia by Susan Jaques

Release Date: April 8, 2016


An art-oriented biography of the mighty Catherine the Great, who rose from seemingly innocuous beginnings to become one of the most powerful people in the world. A German princess who married a decadent and lazy Russian prince, Catherine mobilized support amongst the Russian nobles, playing off of her husband's increasing corruption and abuse of power. She then staged a coup that ended with him being strangled with his own scarf in the halls of the palace, and she being crowned the Empress of Russia.



The King's Bed: Ambition and Intimacy in the Court of Charles II by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh

US Release Date: March 8, 2016
UK Release Date: April 12, 2016


To refer to the private life of Charles II is to abuse the adjective. His personal life was anything but private. His amorous liaisons were largely conducted in royal palaces surrounded by friends, courtiers and literally hundreds of servants and soldiers. Gossip radiated throughout the kingdom.

The astonishing private life of Charles II reveals much about the man he was and why he lived and ruled as he did. The King's Bed tells the compelling story of a king ruled by his passion.



The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance by Paul Strathern

US Release Date: March 8, 2016
UK Release Date: April 12, 2016


A dazzling history of the modest family that rose to become one of the most powerful in Europe, The Medici is a remarkably modern story of power, money, and ambition. Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage.

Strathern also follows the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello; as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola; and the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de' Médicis, who became Queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns.



The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor: Elizabeth I, Thomas Seymour, and the Making of a Virgin Queen by Elizabeth Norton

US Release Date: January 8, 2016
UK Release Date: February 12, 2016


England, late 1547. King Henry VIII Is dead. His fourteen-year-old daughter Elizabeth is living with the king’s widow, Catherine Parr, and her new husband, Thomas Seymour. Seymour is the brother of Henry VIII’s third wife, the late Jane Seymour, who was the mother to the now-ailing boy King.

Ambitious and dangerous, Seymour begins and overt flirtation with Elizabeth that ends with Catherine sending her away. When Catherine dies a year later and Seymour is arrested for treason soon after, a scandal explodes. Alone and in dreadful danger, Elizabeth is threatened by supporters of her half-sister, Mary, who wishes to see England return to Catholicism. She is also closely questioned by the king’s regency council due to her place in the line of succession. Was she still a virgin? Was there a child? Had she promised to marry Seymour?

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Upcoming Historical War Novels

Hunting the Eagles: (Eagles of Rome 2) by Ben Kane

Release Date: March 24, 2016


Five long years have passed since the annihilation of three Roman legions in the wilds of Germania. Varus, the general who led the ill-fated army, is long dead and the bones of his 15,000 legionaries moulder in the forests. But not all the Romans were slain in the ambush. Centurion Tullus, a seasoned veteran, survived and now he lives for revenge upon the tribal chieftain Arminius, who masterminded the ambush. Tullus will stop at nothing to kill his bitterest enemy, or to recover his legion’s lost Eagle.



Britannia by Simon Scarrow

Release Date: November 19, 2015


Roman Britain, AD 52. The western tribes, inspired by the Druids' hatred of the Romans, prepare to make a stand. But can they match the discipline and courage of the legionaries?

Wounded during a skirmish, Centurion Macro remains behind in charge of the fort as Centurion Cato leads an invasion deep into the hills. Cato's mission: to cement Rome's triumph over the natives by crushing the Druid stronghold. But with winter drawing in, the terrain is barely passable through icy rain and snowstorms.

When Macro's patrols report that the natives in the vicinity of the garrison are thinning out, a terrible suspicion takes shape in the battle-scarred soldier's mind. Has the acting Governor, Legate Quintatus, underestimated the enemy, his military judgement undermined by ambition? If there is a sophisticated and deadly plan afoot, it's Cato and his men who will pay the price.


The Risen: A Novel of Spartacus by David Anthony Durham

Release Date: March 15, 2016



From the author of Pride of Carthage, the superb fictional rendering of Hannibal's epic military campaigns against Carthage's archenemy Rome, comes the perfect follow-up: an equally superb novel of the legendary gladiator Spartacus and the vast slave revolt he led that came ever so close to bringing Rome and its supposedly invincible legions to its knees. No one brings more verve, intelligence, and freshness to the perennially commercial sword-and-sandals genre than David Anthony Durham.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...