Review: The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy

★★★★

Release Date: July 2011

Book Synopsis: 

Bound by blood, torn by devotion...

In the wake of King Henry VIII's death, England's throne is left in a precarious state-as is the peculiar relationship between his two daughters. Mary, the elder, once treasured, had been declared a bastard in favor of her flame-haired half-sister, Elizabeth, born of the doomed Anne Boleyn. Yet the bond between the sisters was palpable from the start. Now reinstated, Mary eventually assumes her place as queen. But as Mary's religious zeal evolves into a reign of terror, young Elizabeth gains the people's favor.  Gripped by a tormenting paranoia, Mary is soon convinced that her beloved Elizabeth is in fact her worst enemy. And the virginal Elizabeth, whose true love is her country, must defy her tyrannical sister to make way for a new era...

A brilliant portrait of the rule of "Bloody Mary" and her intricate relationship with Elizabeth I, the adored "Virgin Queen," here is a riveting tale of one family's sordid and extraordinary chapter in the pages of history.

My Review: The Tudor Throne is told in both Elizabeth’s and Mary’s point of views with interchanging chapters. The story begins on King Henry VIII’s death bed when Mary is back in favor with her father and Elizabeth is the charming flame-haired girl who is the spitting image of Henry. The story progresses as both Mary and Elizabeth travel through life and we see their once loving relationship turn cold as ice. Once Mary ascends the throne of England, she immediately imprisons her sister out of fear of Elizabeth conspiring to overthrow her. 

When Elizabeth is a young girl, we witness her being taken advantage of by the Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour, who was husband to Henry VIII’s last wife and Elizabeth’s stepmother, Catherine Parr. This was probably the most difficult part of the book to get through because Thomas Seymour was a full fledged pervert! Not only did he go after Elizabeth but he went after Mary before he even considered Elizabeth. 

It is obvious that Brandy Purdy did her research for this Tudor novel. I love how she interchanged both Mary’s and Elizabeth’s point of view because I enjoyed knowing what they were thinking during their times of strife and glory. This story was beautifully told and it wasn’t like all the other Tudor novels out there. It had its own unique qualities, which makes it stand out above all the rest. I highly recommend The Tudor Throne to all Tudor historical fiction lovers out there.

I received a copy of this book from the Author Brandy Purdy in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was in no way compensated for posting my review.

Giveaway Winner Announcement!

Hey everyone please help me congratulate the lucky winner of Evan Ostryziuk's novel Of Faith and Fidelity! If you signed up for this giveaway and weren't chosen don't despair. There will be plenty more opportunities to win coming up in the near future!

and the winner is...

Best O' Books! 

Hey everyone please help me congratulate the lucky winner of J.S. Dunn's novel Bending the Boyne! If you signed up for this giveaway and weren't chosen don't despair. There are plenty more opportunities to win going on right now and more are coming up in the near future!

and the winner is...

Joni!
An email has just been sent out. Please forward me your mailing address so I
can forward  it on to the publisher. Happy reading everyone!

3 Book Giveaway: Bride Flight by Marieke Van Der Pol

Hope everyone is having a great Saturday morning! Today I have a special treat for you! I'm giving away three copies of Bride Flight, which has also been made into a motion picture! Below is information about both the book and the film. If this book sounds like something you would be interested in reading feel free to sign up for the giveaway by following the giveaway guidelines listed below.

Book Synopsis:

Based on a true story, this evocative period piece is filled with chance meetings, pioneering women, and sparkling romance.

It is 1953, and the last great transcontinental air race from London to Christchurch is about to begin; but even before the plane has left the runway, it has already become famous as the "bride flight." Of its 60 emigrating passengers, many are brides-to-be flying out to join their fiancés on the other side of the world. Among them are Ada, Marjorie, and Esther, each of them with their own reasons for wanting to leave behind the hardships of post-war life at home and their own pasts. During the trip they meet Frank, a charismatic bachelor, who will come to have a dramatic influence on their lives and who exerts a continued hold over each of the women as they follow their very different paths in New Zealand. It is only when they meet again, years later, at Frank's funeral, that the three women—now "brides in black"—get to hear each others stories for the first time and realize just how closely their lives have been bound together by what happened on the bride flight.

About the Film:

* * * IN THEATERS BEGINNING FRIDAY, JUNE 10TH * * *

“BRIDE FLIGHT”

Only love and regret last forever

“Fascinating, beautifully acted and magnificently photographed.” -- Rex Reed, NY Observer

BRIDE FLIGHT is a lavish romantic drama inspired by the true story of the 1953 KLM flight that won the “Last Great Air Race” from London to Christchurch. The flight was dubbed “Bride Flight” by the international press, because of its special passengers -- young women with wedding dresses in their suitcases, traveling to join their fiancés who had already emigrated to New Zealand. 

Leaving behind the gloom and scarcity of post-WWII Europe, shy but sensual farm girl Ada, dogmatic Marjorie, and Jewish fashion designer Esther are filled with hope for a future of love and freedom. Each takes a very different journey in their strange new land, but together with handsome bachelor Frank, their paths continue to cross with chance meetings resulting in adultery, betrayal and near tragedy leading up to a reunion fifty years later. 

Honored with Audience Awards at film festivals across the country, BRIDE FLIGHT evokes a time of slim choices and desperate optimism, with sweeping views of the New Zealand countryside, stunning period dresses, and the faint smell of Pinot Noir from the thriving vineyard Frank establishes in New Zealand. (A Music Box Films release.)

http://www.brideflightmovie.com/

http://www.facebook.com/brideflight

Directed by Ben Sombogaart. Stars Waldemar Torenstra, Karina Smulders, Anna Drijver, Elise Schaap, Rutger Hauer, Pleuni Touw.

This giveaway is open to US residents only and it's open until July 2nd.

Giveaway Guidelines:  

-You must be a Follower of this blog through the GFC follower in order to be entered into this giveaway.

-Please leave your name and email address in order for me to contact you if you are the winner. If an email is not listed then unfortunately you will not be entered.

+1 extra entry for being a new follower of this blog. 

+1 extra entry each time you post this giveaway on twitter, facebook and/or on your blog somewhere. To count please leave a link in the comment section.

 

Review: Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn

★★★★

Book Source: I received a copy from the author in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Release Date: April 5^th, 2011

Book Synopsis: A.D. 69. Nero is dead. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. With bloodshed spilling out of the palace and into the streets of Rome, chaos has become the status quo. The Year of Four Emperors will change everything—especially the lives of two sisters with a very personal stake in the outcome…

Elegant and ambitious, Cornelia embodies the essence of the perfect Roman wife. She lives to one day see her loyal husband as Emperor. Her sister Marcella is more withdrawn, content to witness history rather than make it. Even so, Marcella has her share of distinguished suitors, from a cutthroat contender for the throne to a politician’s son who swears that someday he will be Emperor.

But when a bloody coup turns their world upside-down, Cornelia and Marcella—along with their cousins, one a collector of husbands and lovers, the other a horse-mad beauty with no interest in romance—must maneuver carefully just to stay alive. As Cornelia tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, Marcella discovers a hidden talent for influencing the most powerful men in Rome. In the end, though, there can only be one Emperor…and one Empress.

My Review: Daughters of Rome is the second novel in Kate Quinn’s series. Not having read the first book Mistress of Rome, I was a little skeptical in reading this one first because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to know what was going on, but I’m happy to report that that wasn’t the case. If I didn’t know that this was the second book in a series then I would have never guessed it belonged in a series at all.

Kate Quinn did an amazing job writing for all the senses. I could smell what they smelled, see and hear everything the characters were witnessing and even taste the food they were it eating! This was definitely a fast past drama, which tells the story of The Year of Four Emperor’s in Ancient Rome. The main characters of the story are four beautiful cousins known as the Cornelias. Cornelia Prima (Cornelia), Cornelia Secunda (Marcella), Cornelia Tertia (Lollia), and Cornelia Quarta (Diana). 

All four women have their own unique personalities. Marcella is a manipulative woman who loves to write her own papers on Roman history despite the fact that she is a woman and not a man. Cornelia is the most grounded out of all four women. She knows what she wants she has the perfect husband who is the next potential Emperor making her the next Empress of Rome. Lollia goes through husbands just like a woman goes through handbags. Her only concern is going to all the important banquets where the Emperor is at. Then there is little Diana, probably the most beautiful out of the four cousins; however, she only has eyes for things with four legs instead of two. She is immensely obsessed with one of Rome’s favorite past times, chariot racing.

Like I mentioned before, Daughters of Rome is a fast past drama which captures the story of the year of four roman emperors and how they fell from power causing everyone’s lives to be thrown off balance. I really enjoyed this story, but I found it a little difficult to keep who’s who straight, which made things confusing at times. Kate touches on every factor during this time: politics, war, extravagant parties, greed, and love. I definitely would recommend this book to those who love ancient Rome.

If you would like to read Kate Quinn’s author guest post click here.

Guest Post: Kate Quinn author of Daughter of Rome

Hey everyone! Hope you are all having a wonderful Thursday. Today at All Things Historical Fiction I have the honor of welcoming a very special guest. Please help me give a warm welcome to Kate Quinn the national bestselling author of Daughters of Rome and Mistress of Rome. Kate is here today to discuss something we all probably wish we had, a time machine and where she would go if she were to have one within her grasp at this very moment. Stay tuned for my review of Mistress of Rome, which I hope to post tomorrow.

The Time Machine Game

When I was little, there was one thing I always wanted in my Christmas stocking, but I never got it.  “They aren't selling time machines at Toys R' Us this year,” my mom told me.  Somehow, they never were.  But I never stopped wishing I had a magic wand, a magic spell, a magic machine that could fax me back to the past.  I've been fascinated by history all my life, and that fascination has become full-blown obsession now that I'm a historical fiction novelist.  I still have the time machine fantasy every time I pick up a great new historical fiction novel that gets me interested in some new era.  My current top 5 travel destinations . . .

1. Rome under the Borgias, as seen in Sarah Poole's The Borgia Betrayal, Jean Plaidy's Madonna of the Seven Hills, and Showtime's new series The Borgias.  I want to walk those twisty bloodstained streets in a fabulous velvet gown, join a riot at the latest papal election, buy myself a hollow ring with a poison pellet, and flirt with Cesare Borgia to see if he really is as sexy as pretty much all novelists seem to portray him.
2. Elizabethan England.  My favorite era as a kid, when I couldn't sit down on the steps in elementary school without pretending I was Elizabeth I refusing to enter the Tower of London.  I want to spend a week as one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, swishing around behind her in emerald green satin, watching to see how the real queen stacks up against all her fictional portrayals by Margaret George, Philippa Gregory, C.W. Gortner, Fiona Buckley, and countless others.  And I may take the opportunity, during my week in Elizabeth's employ, to slap that sly Lettice Knollys in the face for daring to steal Robert Dudley away from my queen. 
3. Ancient Egypt, which I regularly visit in the novels of Michelle Moran, Margaret George, and Pauline Gedge.  I plan to ride a barge down the Nile, watch the great pyramids being built, and maybe adopt one of those sacred cats with gold hoop earrings.  And let's settle this question once and for all:  did the real Cleopatra look anything like Elizabeth Taylor? 
4. Gilded Age New York.  I'd like to be one of those American heiresses I was always sighing over in Edith Wharton novels, heading off to Europe in an ocean liner with ninety new dresses by Worth, intent on bagging myself an English lord. If I can marry a duke like Nan St. George did in The Buccaneers, I may just take a look around my Cornish castle and my coronetted stationery marked “Katharine, Duchess of Tintagel,” and decide not to come home. 
5. And finally – ancient Rome.  I write about ancient Rome, so it should be no surprise I'd like to go there.  Specifically, I'd like to visit the Year of the Four Emperors, which provides the setting for my most recent book Daughters of Rome.  It was a turbulent time, emperors falling to the side like ninepins as one usurper after another went after each other with private armies – but it certainly wasn't dull.  And I'll risk all the danger just to see if I got it right in my book.  Was Emperor Galba really such a sour old crank as I ended up depicting him?  Was Emperor Otho really such a metrosexual-party-boy-opposite to his predecessor?  Was Emperor Vitellius really a bulimic over-eater who used a vomitorium in between dinner courses?  Was Emperor Vespasian's son really a psychotic little creep?  Daughters of Rome contains all my best guesses on those questions.  But I'll never know for sure, unless Toys R' Us starts selling time machines. 

How about you, readers – what's the historical era that makes you wish for a time machine? 

Author Bio:

Kate Quinn is a native of southern California. She attended Boston University, where she earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Classical Voice. A lifelong history buff, she first got hooked on ancient Rome while watching I, Claudius at the age of seven. Still in elementary school when she saw the movie Spartacus, she resolved to someday write a book about a gladiator. That ambition turned into Mistress of Rome, written when she was a freshman in college.

“I was alone in a brand-new city – I knew no one and nothing about Boston, so I escaped into ancient Rome instead. I didn’t even have a computer, but I didn’t let that stop me.” Mistress of Rome was completed in four months, written in six-hour stretches in the Boston University basement computer lab while listening to the Gladiator soundtrack on repeat. It has now been translated into multiple languages and has been followed by a prequel, Daughters of Rome.

Kate is currently working on her third novel, set during the reign of Emperor Trajan. She also has succumbed to the blogging bug, and keeps a blog filled with trivia, pet peeves, and interesting facts about historical fiction. She and her husband live in California, and her interests include opera, action movies, cooking, and the Boston Red Sox. 

Mistress of Rome Synopsis:

A.D. 69. Nero is dead. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. With bloodshed spilling out of the palace and into the streets of Rome, chaos has become the status quo. The Year of Four Emperors will change everything—especially the lives of two sisters with a very personal stake in the outcome…

Elegant and ambitious, Cornelia embodies the essence of the perfect Roman wife. She lives to one day see her loyal husband as Emperor. Her sister Marcella is more withdrawn, content to witness history rather than make it. Even so, Marcella has her share of distinguished suitors, from a cutthroat contender for the throne to a politician’s son who swears that someday he will be Emperor.

But when a bloody coup turns their world upside-down, Cornelia and Marcella—along with their cousins, one a collector of husbands and lovers, the other a horse-mad beauty with no interest in romance—must maneuver carefully just to stay alive. As Cornelia tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, Marcella discovers a hidden talent for influencing the most powerful men in Rome. In the end, though, there can only be one Emperor…and one Empress.
 

Guest Post: Douglas W. Jacobson discusses the Unlikely Heroes of WWII

Hey everyone. Today I have a special guest, author Douglas W. Jacobson, here to discuss the unlikely heroes of World War Two and he is also here to discuss his latest novel The Katyn Hero.

 UNLIKELY HEROES

World War Two – 70 Years Ago

American airman, George Watt, was a gunner aboard a B-17 flying a mission from England to the Ruhr valley in Germany on November 5, 1943, when his plane was shot down near the Belgian village of Zele. He parachuted to earth and landed in an open field, drawing the immediate attention of local Nazi authorities. While Watt hid in a ditch the local townspeople distracted the authorities pointing off in the wrong direction. Before long, one of the locals approached him and led him to a rural homestead where he was given civilian clothing and warm food. A few days later Watt was taken to Brussels where he was interviewed to make certain he wasn’t a spy and was soon off to Paris and on to safety in Spain. Watt didn’t know it at the time but he had been aboard the “Comet Line”.

The Comet Line was Europe’s largest and most successful underground escape line during World War Two. Established in 1941 by 24 year old Andree de Jongh and her schoolmaster father, the Comet Line transported more than a thousand Allied aviators and other soldiers to safety during the course of Nazi occupation. Andree escorted over one hundred of these soldiers to safety herself, following the secret, intricate route from Holland and Belgium, through occupied France, then overland on foot over the Pyrenees Mountains to Spain.

Traveling by trains, bicycles, horse-drawn carts and on foot, with falsified documents and borrowed clothing, Allied soldiers would be passed from one set of Comet Line operatives to another in the perilous route to freedom. The dangers were equally acute to the operatives themselves as capture by the SS or Gestapo meant imprisonment, torture and, in most cases, death. Indeed, the danger was so real that by the end of the war almost one Comet Line operative was captured and executed for every Allied soldier rescued. Yet hundreds of common people, farmers, merchants, housewives, young and old, put themselves at risk to aid the war effort by bringing these young soldiers to safety.

They say that every good novel must come from the heart, an inspiration that captivates the soul and drives the author to tell the story. Such was my inspiration in writing THE KATYN ORDER. I have been reading about and studying World war two for most of my adult life. When I encountered the story about the Comet Line, I was captivated, inspired and compelled to pay tribute to this very real story of human courage, a story of Unlikely Heroes.

But the real beginning of THE KATYN ORDER goes back a few more years. In 1993, my daughter married a young man from Belgium and moved to Europe, setting our family on a course that has forever changed our lives. Over time, while traveling to Europe two or three times a year, we became very close friends with my son-in-law’s parents. They are wonderful, caring people who are several years older than we are. They were young children during the German occupation of Belgium—young, but old enough to remember. They didn’t talk about it at first, in fact they still don’t, its over, it happened a long time ago, and they survived. End of story. But gradually, as they realized I really wanted to know, they began to tell me the stories. They told me about living in the cellar while their city was being bombed, about not having anything to eat for months on end and German snipers shooting at them while they scavenged in the streets for food, about my son-in-law’s grandfather being dragged away from the family home by the Gestapo in 1941. . . then returning five years later when he walked home from Germany.

Like the stories of the Comet Line, the experiences of my Belgian in-laws inspired me. It made it real. And I spent the next five years writing THE KATYN ORDER.

About the Author

Douglas W. Jacobson is an engineer, business owner and World War Two history enthusiast. Doug has traveled extensively in Europe researching stories of the courage of common people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. His debut novel, Night of Flames: A Novel of World War Two was published in 2007 by McBooks Press, and was released in paperback in 2008. Night of Flames won the “2007 Outstanding Achievement Award” from the Wisconsin Library association. Doug writes a monthly column on Poland’s contribution during WW2, has published articles on Belgium’s WW2 escape organization, the Comet Line and other European resistance organizations. Doug’s second historical novel, The Katyn Order, which will be released in May, 2011, focuses on one of history’s most notorious war crimes, the Katyn massacre.
You can visit his website at www.douglaswjacobson.com.

Guest Post + Giveaway: Evan Ostryzniuk author of Faith & Fidelity

Hey everyone! Today I have a special guest Evan Ostryzniuk the author of Of Faith and Fidelity and he is here today to talk to us about writing historical novels when there's major gaps in the historical records. At the end of his post you will have a chance to win a copy of his book and it's open to both the US and Canada.

Dealing with Gaps in the Historical Record
By Evan Ostryzniuk

The portrayal of real-life events and people in historical fiction is a very delicate thing because the author not only has to give an honest account of times past, but also convincingly integrate those events and people into the imagined narrative and make them entertaining. This is all very well when the historical record is overflowing with facts and figures, diaries and documents, which the author can rely on and draw from to populate the plot, create a historical context or support personal motivations. However, what is the author to do when the historical record is fragmentary, or when the witnesses to the age are unreliable? Locating reliable sources is a major problem when considering the Middle Ages because those centuries are so less well documented that those that came before or after them. This was the problem I faced when researching for the English Free Company series and especially when I was writing Of Faith and Fidelity: Geoffrey Hotspur and the War for St. Peter’s Throne. 

Near the beginning of my novel, Pope Boniface instructs his brother, who is running the papal campaign in the Patrimony of St. Peter, not to be haughty when negotiating with the lords and captains under his command – witnesses attest that he murdered an especially popular one in 1392! There is no surviving record of such a conversation ever taking place; however, the composite historical record does suggest that a shift in strategy occurred between the papal campaigns of 1392 and 1394, and that the family of Boniface was close, so they would have talked on a regular basis. They might have written letters to one another, of course, but it was a far more interesting narrative decision to have a face-to-face confrontation between the brothers. That way, not only was I able to dramatize the tension of this particular issue, I was also able to use the personal interaction as means to further reveal their respective characters. 

People did not spend a whole lot of time talking about themselves in the Middle Ages. Therefore, in order to understand the impact of the Western Schism on individuals I was obliged to study the place of the Church in medieval society as a whole and heavily rely on secondary sources that speculated on the popular view. What is clear is that many decisions were motivated by fears about personal salvation, which was facilitated by the priests ordained by the Church, whose senior officer was the pope. When two popes were elected in 1378, each by a qualified conclave, I had to assume that most believers would be worried about whether their priest would be excommunicated for backing the wrong side, especially since I found precious few contemporary accounts about such worries. I had to make similar assumptions about those who were directly involved in the schism war. While all of the captains hired by one pope to make war on the other pope were believers, judging by their actions, which included switching sides for lack of payment and seizing papal cities without permission, I had to assume that their views of the Church and its leader was complex. Of course, they could also have been just amoral bandits with a badge. Nonetheless, once I put all the disparate pieces of evidence together, it became clear that the picture was far more muddled than I had expected. 

In my novel I wanted to represent the times not only as they were, but also as they were perceived by contemporaries. This might sound contradictory or unnecessarily involved, but I want my readers to be able to identify or sympathize with some of the archetypical men and women of the Middle Ages, even if only to treat them as signposts for understanding the historical context. To this end I decided to rely on a respected literary source, and for the 14^th century the logical choice was Canterbury Tales. Chaucer might have been poking fun at his own times, building up and then tearing down popular stereotypes, like the knight or the pardoner, but I have to be convinced that he infused his creations with traits that were representative of the social body. The literary lineage of Geoffrey Hotspur can be traced to Chaucer’s knight and squire, from their affectations and attitudes to their core beliefs. 

Closing the gaps in historical knowledge requires marrying assumptions, whether projecting intentions based on subsequent events or actions derived from related episodes and the chronicling tradition. For example, we have the lists of captains and number of men they commanded for the respective hosts in Of Faith and Fidelity, where they campaigned and how much they were paid. However, in the absence of surviving documentary evidence of what arms and armor they carried, for example, or how the captains treated one another, I had to rely on sources that described similar contemporary events elsewhere, piece together biographies of the captains from assorted references and even draw on literary sources overgrown with bias. The same goes for battles. Field commanders in the Middle Ages were innovative only when they had to be, so examples of successful stratagems and tactics from campaigns past dominated strategic planning, and this predictability gave me license to transpose those same stratagems and tactics into portrayals of less recorded engagements. 

Another means of filling the gaps in the historical record is introducing your own characters into it. If it was good enough for Shakespeare… As in the process of creating convincing fictional individuals, the characters have to bear some of the traits that the author has to judge were typical for the age. This much is obvious, but part of the trick is integrating these fictional characters with the genuine ones in order to advance the plot, expose a prejudice or reveal an intention that affected the true historical events considered in the novel. Geoffrey Hotspur is a man of his times, but he is also exceptional. He might be just a squire of the Duke of Lancaster, Sir John of Gaunt, in my novel, but his grace did have a stable of squires dispersed around his many lands in England in France, some of whom became knights and fought in the great conflicts of the age. 

 Biography of Author Evan Ostryzniuk

Evan Ostryzniuk was born and raised on the prairies of western Canada, where he also attended the University of Saskatchewan. After graduating with a B.A. in History and Modern Languages and an M.A. in Modern History, Evan crossed the ocean to do post-graduate work at the University of Cambridge, concluding five years of research with a doctoral thesis on the Russian Revolution. He eventually found his way to eastern Europe, where he took up positions as a magazine editor, university lecturer and analyst in the financial services sector before finally settling on writing as a career. Evan Ostryzniuk currently resides in Kyiv, Ukraine. Of Faith and Fidelity: Geoffrey Hotspur and the War for St. Peter’s Throne is his first novel. It will be published on June 9, 2011 by Knox Robinson Publishing. 

Of Faith and Fidelity: Geoffrey Hotspur and the War for St. Peter’s Throne is the first book in the English Free Company series set in the late Middle Ages. The English Free Company is led by Geoffrey Hotspur, an orphan-squire and ward of the mighty Duke of Lancaster, whose driving ambition is to become a knight and serve a great lord. Of Faith and Fidelity takes place in 1394, at the height of the schism of the Western Church when the throne of St. Peter was contested by rival claimants in Rome and Avignon. Unable to settle the dispute peacefully, both sides resorted to war, and the key to winning the throne of St. Peter was control of the Patrimony, a band of territory stretching the breadth of Italy that owes fealty to whichever pope who can rule it. Before Henry V won his miraculous victory at Agincourt, before the Borgias had done their infamous deeds, there was Geoffrey Hotspur, a man as tall as Charlemagne and armed with a sword that rivals Excalibur. Thrown off the established path to knighthood, the ambitious and hot-tempered Geoffrey finds himself caught up in the war between the two popes, where he must adapt his beliefs and apply his training as a squire in order to survive. 

Book Synopsis:

Of Faith and Fidelity: Geoffrey Hotspur and the War for St. Peter’s Throne takes place in 1394, at the height of the schism of the Western Church when the throne of St. Peter was contested by rival claimants in Rome and Avignon. For nearly sixteen years the papacy was been divided between claimants in Rome and Avignon. Unable to settle the dispute peacefully, both sides resorted to war. The key to winning the throne of St. Peter was always control of the Patrimony, a band of territory stretching the breadth of Italy that owes fealty to whichever pope who can rule it. From Scandinavia to Sicily, there is great anticipation that the campaign of 1394 will culminate in a battle that will secure the Patrimony of St. Peter for one man.

 

Before Henry V won his miraculous victory at Agincourt, before the Borgias had done their infamous deeds, there was Geoffrey Hotspur, a man as tall as Charlemagne and armed with a sword that rivals Excalibur. Thrown off the established path to knighthood, the ambitious and hot-tempered Geoffrey finds himself caught up in the war between the two popes, where he must adapt his beliefs and apply his training as a squire in order to survive. To this end, Geoffrey founds the English Free Company and fights in the battles between the armies of the two popes. With little money, fewer friends and no name, yet with his faith in chivalry firmly set, Geoffrey Hotspur possesses the confidence that what he does is right for him and for those he had sworn to serve.

 

Helping and hindering Geoffrey Hotspur in equal measure in his quest for knighthood is a gallery of characters with their own agendas, from professional debt collector Jean Lagoustine, to the Chancellor of Florence Coluccio Salutati, to a mysterious astrologer named Catherine, who seems to have a suspiciously impressive set of connections in the world of Italian politics.

 

A thrilling start to the story of Geoffrey Hotspur and his English Free Company, Of Faith and Fidelity is at heart a squire’s tale of hope, adventure and ambition during a time of great uncertainty.

Giveaway Details: This giveaway is open to both the US and Canadian residents. It ends June 23rd. Please follow the list of guidelines in order to sign up for this amazing giveaway!

Giveaway Guidelines: 

-Please leave a comment below stating what you enjoyed most about Evan's guest post.

-You must be a Follower of this blog through the GFC follower in order to be entered into this giveaway.

-Please leave your name and email address in order for me to contact you if you are the winner. If an email is not listed then unfortunately you will not be entered.

+1 extra entry for being a new follower of this blog. 

+1 extra entry each time you post this giveaway on twitter, facebook and/or on your blog somewhere. To count please leave a link in the comment section.

 

Giveaway Winner Announcement: Queen By Right

Hey everyone sorry it took so long for me to post the name of the winner of Anne Easter Smith's novel Queen By Right. It's been a hectic week! I just randomly picked the winner through random.org

and the winner is...

 Cynthia @ cyn209

If you signed up for this giveaway and weren't chosen don't despair. There are plenty more opportunities to win going on right now and more are coming up in the near future. Right now I'm giving away a copy of Bending the Boyne by J.S. Dunn which won the 2011 Historical Fiction Next Generation Indie Book Award. 

 

Also, I'm giving away a copy of In Byron's Shadow by Ashley Barnard, which I have high expectations for!

Guest Post + Giveaway: Bending the Boyne by J.S. Dunn

Today I have the pleasure of having J. S. Dunn here at ATHF to discuss his latest novel Bending the Boyne, which won first place in the historical fiction, 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. The author is graciously offering up a copy of Bending the Boyne to one lucky winner at the end of this post.

...And now for something completely different
By J. S. Dunn

            Anyone familiar with old Monty Python episodes will recognize the phrase above, and it applies to the novel you’ll hear about in this guest post. Bending The Boyne, set in ancient Eire at 2200 BCE, is in the vein of Jean Auel’s series. This work has no druid/esses, no time travel, no fluffy royals. What could possibly inspire a first-time author to spend ten years researching and writing such a work? The answer lies in western Europe’s oldest mythology and largest concentration of prehistoric rock art. 

       The Boyne mounds, older than the pyramids and Stonehenge, fell out of use around the end of the third millennium BCE as did megaliths along much of the north Atlantic coasts, from the Pyrenees to Brittany and into the Isles. This had nothing to do with “Celts” as that culture didn’t appear for over a thousand years in the Isles. But 21^st century archaeology reveals a compelling story of change.  This is the first novel of Bronze Age Ireland to explore what may have happened. The passage mounds and their carved rocks are now acknowledged to be intricately engineered observatories for movements of sun, moon, and constellations. The challenge was, what character should center the story of the great Boyne passage mounds and how they came to be abandoned?

        

    Boann, a figure now described as a goddess to fit modern concepts, is associated with the river Boyne and with the white river in the sky, the Milky Way. She appears briefly in the earliest myths and then she literally disappears. Her life is sketchily set forth in fragments. She is said to have a number of husbands, and a little dog named Dabilla. Her son Aengus is strongly associated with the passage mound now called Newgrange, but in a prehistoric version of Who’s Your Daddy? The myths are not clear on just who is his father. It is clear that Boann is the mother of Aengus. In this novel she is also an apprentice learning her people’s astronomy.

        

    Boann’s impassioned struggle to hold on to her people’s astronomy and their values forms the central conflict in Bending The Boyne, when marauders seeking gold reach the Boyne to plunder it. She faces the choice of duty as against personal desires. Boann’s lover Cian, another sketchy figure from the earliest mythology, is banished overseas. From there he figures out how to help Boann and his people survive the incoming warriors in a profound way.

          

           The discord surrounding Aengus’ paternity haunts him into adulthood and leads to the shocking result when Aengus finally confronts Elcmar, the invader who married Boann for his own purposes.

          

          Aengus knows that “all of time is made up of night and day.” He intends to hold onto the Boyne forever, newcomers or not. Truth is stranger than fiction. To our era, the great passage inside Newgrange, over 60 feet in length, still welcomes the rays of winter solstice sunrise after more than 4,000 years. So it is that Aengus, the young son of Boann, returns at solstice to shine upon Eire. The Boyne complex in Ireland is now a UN World Heritage site that has tens of thousands of visitors annually. Perhaps the builders knew this structure could last forever.

       

       The huge mounds faded from the myths and were later described as elfmounds, dismissed in later centuries by those who had ample reason to act as spin doctors. The gold hidden in those mounds is not metal, it is the myths themselves and the rich heritage of Irish literature inspired by Boann and Aengus from the likes of Yeats, Synge, Joyce, Flann O’Brien, and others. The astute reader will catch echoes of these in Bending The Boyne. In addition to deconstructing the myth of Boann and her son Aengus, this novel is studded with modern celebrities, glimpses of Van Morrison, Gerry Adams, and others. The subtext is a mirror held up to notions of myth and celebrity, to beliefs and how they arise.

            This novel can be read as “archaeofiction”, a tale of a largely forgotten culture. It can also be read as political allegory, the origin of Troubles once boatloads of invaders could reach the fair isle of Eire. For readers familiar with the Irish/Welsh mythology, it brings those gods and goddesses—more human than the ephemeral Greco-Roman deities—to life, and with a wry humor. Where else could one find a healer whose name means pain, and a brawny hero who is either seasick or suffering from allergies?

            One last thing, about the precise location of gold in Ireland: that is still a secret.

[BIO info follows below]

Bending The Boyne received first place, historical fiction, 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

The author resided in Ireland during the past decade to research Bending The Boyne. J.S. Dunn can be found on: www.jsdunnbooks.com or www.seriouslygoodbooks.net . The author has a second novel underway, set later in the Atlantic Bronze Age during another period of great change.

Book Synopsis:

Circa 2200 BCE: Changes rocking the Continent reach Eire with the dawning Bronze Age. Well before any Celts, marauders invade the island seeking copper and gold. The young astronomer Boann and the enigmatic Cian need all their wits and courage to save their people and their great Boyne mounds, when long bronze knives challenge the peaceful native starwatchers. Banished to far coasts, Cian discovers how to outwit the invaders at their own game. Tensions on Eire between new and old cultures and between Boann, Elcmar, and her son Aengus, ultimately explode. What emerges from the rubble of battle are the legends of Ireland’s beginnings in a totally new light.

Larger than myth, this tale echoes with medieval texts, and cult heroes modern and ancient. As ever, the victors will spin the myths.

This story appeals to fans of solid historical fiction, myth and fantasy, archaeo-astronomy, and Bronze Age Europe.

On to the Giveaway:
This giveaway is open to US residents only and it ends June 20th. Please follow the guidelines listed below to enter.
 

-Please leave a comment below stating what you enjoyed most about J.S. Dunn's guest post.

-You must be a Follower of this blog through the GFC follower in order to be entered into this giveaway.

-Please leave your name and email address in order for me to contact you if you are the winner. If an email is not listed then unfortunately you will not be entered.

+1 extra entryfor being a new follower of this blog. 

+1 extra entry each time you post this giveaway on twitter, facebook and/or on your blog leave a link in the comment section somewhere to count please.

Lucky Finds in Gardner's Used Books!

So every year the dreaded tax season roll's around and unlike most people I actually really look forward to tax season and here's why! The man who does my entire family's taxes owns his own used book store called Gardner's, which is your usual hole in the wall used book store. So every time you get your taxes done he gives you a 20 dollar gift certificate for his store! It's not the nicest joint in town, but if you can get past the dust and cramped spaces then it's a gold mine when it comes to finding some amazing used books! Today I scored 5 books for only 30 bucks!

I wish you could see how vibrant the book cover is. This photo doesn't do it justice! I found this book in mint condition, which really makes the find more worthwhile! 

Publishing date: 1992

Book Synopsis:

In the 1490s, as the ruling families of Italy engage in a deadly rivalry, two charismatic young women seek to control their destinies and, in the process, shape the course of history. Cousins by birth and married, respectively, to the debauched Duke of Milan and his visionary regent, Lodovico Sforza, Isabella of Aragon and Beatrice d'Este are women of great beauty, limitless ambition, and with the sort of amoral cunning necessary simply to survive in the age of Machiavelli.

Michael Ennis's sweeping and unfailingly intelligent novel depicts the struggle of these two women to find love within and outside of marriages that are regarded merely as strategic alliances, and, ultimately, to endure the catastrophic consequences of following their own hearts. The narrative re-creates the courts of Renaissance Milan, Naples, and Venice with breathtaking authenticity: their public magnificence and appalling private scandals; the ceaseless maneuvering of rapacious noblemen and corrupt clergy; the intrigues in which sex and poison are interchangeable weapons. Meticulously researched with a scrupulous regard for accuracy and detail, Duchess of Milan is both a riveting political thriller and a poignant historical romance that reveals how great events are determined by private passions.

I was just about to check out when I saw this book sitting on the shelf and I just had to have it. It's a non-fiction book over the life of Joan of Arc and it has been translated into English.

Publishing Date: 1998

Book Synopsis: 

In an exquisite English translation from the bestselling French edition, Joan of Arc: Her Story now appears for American readers. From the French peasant girl who led an army to the icon burned at the stake, Joan has been a blank slate on which thousands have written. Pernoud and Clin clear away the myths so that modern readers can see Joan as she was and include a glossary of important individuals, historical events and interpretations of Joan through the ages. Joan of Arc: Her Story is the thrilling life of a woman who obsesses us even to this day.

 This book is probably in the worst condition out of all the books I snatched up, but it wasn't too bad. The cover is just slightly bent and you can tell it's been read one or two times. I had to get this book since it's about Marie Antoinette one of my favorite historical women. I've never heard of the author but I can't wait to dive right in!

Publishing Date: 2003

Book Synopsis:

Paris, 1793, the onset of the Terror. Brave Republican Maurice rescues a mys-terious and beautiful woman from an angry mob and is unknowingly drawn into a secret Royalist plot—a plot revolving around the imprisoned Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, and her enigmatic and fearless champion, the Knight of Maison-Rouge. Full of surprising twists, breakneck adventure, conspiracies, swordplay, romance, and heroism, The Knight of Maison-Rouge is an exhilarating tale of selflessness, love, and honor under the shadow of the guillotine. Dumas here is at the very height of his powers, and with this first and only modern translation, readers can once again ride with the Knight of Maison-Rouge. 

 This book was highly recommended to me and when I found it I was so happy because I completely forgot about this book until it popped out at me on the shelf.

Publishing Date: 2002

Book Synopsis:

Faber's bawdy, brilliant third novel tells an intricate tale of love and ambition and paints a new portrait of Victorian England and its citizens in prose crackling with insight and bravado. Using the wealthy Rackham clan as a focal point for his sprawling, gorgeous epic, Faber, like Dickens or Hardy, explores an era's secrets and social hypocrisy. William Rackham is a restless, rebellious spirit, mistrustful of convention and the demands of his father's perfume business. While spying on his sickly wife's maid, whom he suspects of thievery, he begins a slow slide into depravity: he meets Sugar, a whore whose penetrating mind and love of books intrigues him as much as her beauty and carnal skills do. Faber (Under the Skin) also weaves in the stories of Agnes, William's delicate, mad and manipulative wife, and Henry, his pious, morally conflicted brother, both of whom seek escape from their private prisons through fantasies and small deceptions. Sin and vice both attract and repel the brothers: William, who becomes obsessed with Sugar, rescues her from her old life, while Henry, paralyzed by his love for Emmeline Fox, a comely widow working to rescue the city's prostitutes, slowly unravels. Faber's central characters, especially the troubled William and the ambitious Sugar, shine with life, and the author is no less gifted in capturing the essence of his many minor characters-the evil madam, Mrs. Castaway, and William's pompous father-in-law, Lord Unwin. The superb plot draws on a wealth of research and briskly moves through the lives of each character-whether major or minor, upstairs or downstairs-gathering force until the fates of all are revealed. A marvelous story of erotic love, sin, familial conflicts and class prejudice, this is a deeply entertaining masterwork that will hold readers captive until the final page. 

This was the last book I snatched up. I saw it right after I picked up the Joan of Ark in Her Story novel and it caught my eye due to the golden pages, which gives it an antique look that I love.

Publication Date: 1999

Book Synopsis:

In a series of diary entries, Princess Elizabeth, the eleven-year-old daughter of King Henry VIII, celebrates holidays and birthdays, relives her mother's execution, revels in her studies, and agonizes over her father's health.

I love finding amazing cheap books! If you've read any of this I would love to know what you thought of them. Maybe the will move of on my TBR pile.