Passages to the Past

2012 Release: Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett

2012-01-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy

by Ken Follett

Release Date: September 18, 2012

Dutton Adult

1,008p

No official synopsis yet but here is a blurb from Ken Follett's website:

Winter of the World, the second book in the 'Century' series, will feature the children of the characters in Fall of Giants as they live through the Depression and the Second World War.

HURRY UP SEPTEMBER!!

Cover of Juliet Grey's DAYS OF SPLENDOR, DAYS OF SORROW: A NOVEL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE is unveiled!

2012-01-26T15:27:00.001-05:00

Hello, all of you lovely followers! I am so very thrilled to unveil to you the cover of Juliet Grey's upcoming release, DAYS OF SPLENDOR, DAYS OF SORROW: A NOVEL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, the second novel in her Marie Antoinette trilogy!

Last year I reviewed the first book, BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE, and absolutely loved it! You can read my review HERE. I am super excited to continue Marie and Louis' story and will be counting down the days until the release!

Passages to the Past will be hosting another live chat with Juliet Grey on May 16th, which happens to be the 242nd wedding anniversary of Marie and Louis and we will be celebrating with some fabulous giveaways! Don't worry, I will be posting reminders as the event date draws near so you won't miss out on all the fun!

About DAYS OF SPLENDOR, DAYS OF SORROW: A NOVEL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE...

Release Date: May 15, 2012

Random House

432p

SYNOPSIS

A captivating novel of rich spectacle and royal scandal, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow spans fifteen years in the fateful reign of Marie Antoinette, France’s most legendary and notorious queen.

Paris, 1774. At the tender age of eighteen, Marie Antoinette ascends to the French throne alongside her husband, Louis XVI. But behind the extravagance of the young queen’s elaborate silk gowns and dizzyingly high coiffures, she harbors deeper fears for her future and that of the Bourbon dynasty.

From the early growing pains of marriage to the joy of conceiving a child, from her passion for Swedish military attaché Axel von Fersen to the devastating Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Marie Antoinette tries to rise above the gossip and rivalries that encircle her. But as revolution blossoms in America, a much larger threat looms beyond the gilded gates of Versailles—one that could sweep away the French monarchy forever.

Guest Post by Anne Clinard Barnhill, author of AT THE MERCY OF THE QUEEN

2012-01-13T18:38:00.000-05:00

As part of the virtual book tour for AT THE MERCY OF THE QUEEN, Passages to the Past is pleased to bring you a guest post by author Anne Clinard Barnhill on Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII who has captivated scores of people for centuries and who is the subject of her first historical fiction novel.

Take it away, Anne...

Anne Boleyn must have been, and remains, one the world's most fascinating women. What is it about her that appeals to readers and fans of history? Why is she, among the six wives of Henry VIII, the one about whom more books have been written and more controversies have been stirred? Though the Court, under Henry's direction, no doubt, did its best to remove all traces of this woman of mystery after her execution, she is still the object of discussion, either adored or vilified by thousands of people across the globe.

She must have been attractive, though not in the conventional sense. At the time, blond, fair, buxom women were thought to be the most alluring; Anne was none of those things. Instead, she was dark, with large, expressive eyes and waist-long black hair. She had a bosom "not much raised" and was thin. What she had was an attractive, unusual look coupled with the exquisite manners and grace of the French Court, where she had spent much of her youth. She was witty, flirty, and had that mysterious, enigmatic thing called sex appeal. And men flocked to her as a result.

First, there was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Thomas Wyatt, the poet, fell under her spell. Francis Weston and Henry Norris both came to her apartments to be near her. And everyone talked about her style, her élan, her je n'sais quoi.

Besides those superficial factors, Anne was intelligent, well-educated, musical, a graceful dancer and open to the new ideas circulating around Europe at the time--the New Learning. She most likely was conversant on any of the subjects in which the men at Court had interest: religion, Martin Luther, banned books, the fallibility of the Roman Catholic Church, the role of citizens in tumultuous times. Of course, Anne would have found a way to discuss these issues in a way that did not put off the more conservative Henry! I imagine her surrounded by the most eligible young men at Court, animatedly discussing the gossip of the day, laughing and smiling as she exulted in her feminine power. She must have been quite an amazing women, one in whom the King of England found his match. Yet, she was also a concerned, involved mother and a religious reformer, one of the evangelists forbidden by law.

Anne Boleyn remains a cipher, for little personal information about her survives. Only a small portrait ring which her daughter, the great Elizabeth, wore throughout her reign.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Anne Clinard Barnhill is on tour with HF Virtual Book Tours and if you would like to follow the tour, you can find the schedule of stops HERE.

Passages to the Past is also hosting a giveaway of AT THE MERCY OF THE QUEEN and if you care to enter, you can click HERE.

Interview with Nancy Bilyeau, author of THE CROWN + Giveaway

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

HF Virtual Book Tours has another exciting virtual tour for you! Author Nancy Bilyeau will be touring the blogosphere for the release of her novel, THE CROWN, from January 5th through March 19th and to start the festivities Passages to the Past is happy to bring you an interview with the lovely Nancy Bilyeau and a giveaway of THE CROWN!

THE CROWN will be released on January 10th from Touchstone Publishing.

To follow THE CROWN Virtual Book Tour, please check out the tour schedule HERE. There are some fabulous blogs on the tour, you won't want to miss the fun!

And now, I bring you an interview with Nancy Bilyeau...

Q: Have you always wanted to be a writer? And did you always want to write historical fiction?

A: I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was eight years old. My third grade teacher liked a report I did after a field trip and wrote a little sign saying, “Have you heard of Nancy Bilyeau, the World Famous Writer?” and hung it on the wall. Teachers make such a huge difference.

I always liked reading historical fiction, and when I decided to try to write a novel I thought I would attempt a book that was part historical fiction and part mystery/thriller.

Q: Can you please tell us a bit about The Crown and the inspiration behind writing it?

A: I wanted to tell an exciting story revolving around a female main character of that time but I didn’t want to write about a royal or a lady-in-waiting. I’ve always been intrigued by nuns. I thought of telling the story of a novice in a priory just when the monasteries were being toppled as Henry VIII tore the country away from Rome.

Q: What type of research did you undertake for the writing of The Crown?

A: I’d been reading nonfiction about the 16th century my whole life so I had a foundation to build on. I read a great many books about the Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries and religious life—my bibliography has more than forty books. I contacted experts to help me, such as the curators of the Dartford Borough Museum, experts on the Tower of London and Malmesbury Abbey. I’ve been to Dartford and seen the remains of the stone wall of the priory, which was of course demolished during the Dissolution. It wasn’t easy to “create” the priory—to decide where the various buildings and gardens would be. I worked hard on that, and ended up with a rough model on my kitchen table, moving the characters around!

Q: What is your favorite part of the writing process? What do you find the most difficult?

A: I love it when the momentum is strong and I’m at my computer, the words flying from my fingers. At those moments, the characters are telling ME what they will do and say. Of course it’s not always like that—in fact, it’s often not like that. Writing is most difficult when you are sitting there knowing what you want a chapter to do but every sentence comes hard. I’ve learned at those times not to be too hard on myself but to get a first pass down and know that I can revise.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

A: Workshop your writing, take classes. Listen to other people; you don’t have to change things but do listen. Show, don’t tell. Be sure the story contains surprises. And work hard on your query letter to agents.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I just finished the sequel to “The Crown.” It’s called “The Chalice,” and it follows Joanna and most of the primary characters from the first book but I add a LOT of new ones. Joanna “encounters” Thomas Cromwell in “The Chalice.” She has a new quest, one more dangerous than that of the first book.

Q: If you could read any book again for the first time, what would it be and why?
A: Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca.” I just think it’s a masterpiece of psychological suspense. The twist near the end—why Rebecca sought death—is in a class all by itself. And every time I read it, I am more impressed by du Maurier’s use of first person perspective.

Q: What authors have inspired you?

A: Besides Daphne de Maurier, Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, A.S. Byatt, Edith Wharton, Henry James, Norah Lofts, P.D. James, Mary Renault, Kate Mosse, Katherine Neville, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Shirley Jackson, and George RR Martin.

About The Crown...

SYNOPSIS

An aristocratic young nun must find a legendary crown in order to save her father—and preserve the Catholic faith from Cromwell’s ruthless terror. The year is 1537...

Joanna Stafford, a Dominican nun, learns that her favorite cousin has been condemned by Henry VIII to be burned at the stake. Defying the sacred rule of enclosure, Joanna leaves the priory to stand at her cousin’s side. Arrested for interfering with the king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, is sent to the Tower of London.

The ruthless Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, takes terrifying steps to force Joanna to agree to spy for him: to save her father’s life she must find an ancient relic—a crown so powerful, it may hold the ability to end the Reformation. Accompanied by two monks, Joanna returns home to Dartford Priory and searches in secret for this long-lost piece of history worn by the Saxon King Athelstan in 937 during the historic battle that first united Britain.

But Dartford Priory has become a dangerous place, and when more than one dead body is uncovered, Joanna departs with a sensitive young monk, Brother Edmund, to search elsewhere for the legendary crown. From royal castles with tapestry-filled rooms to Stonehenge to Malmesbury Abbey, the final resting place of King Athelstan, Joanna and Brother Edmund must hurry to find the crown if they want to keep Joanna’s father alive. At Malmesbury, secrets of the crown are revealed that bring to light the fates of the Black Prince, Richard the Lionhearted, and Katherine of Aragon’s first husband, Arthur. The crown’s intensity and strength are beyond the earthly realm and it must not fall into the wrong hands.

With Cromwell’s troops threatening to shutter her priory, bright and bold Joanna must now decide who she can trust with the secret of the crown so that she may save herself, her family, and her sacred way of life. This provocative story melds heart-stopping suspense with historical detail and brings to life the poignant dramas of women and men at a fascinating and critical moment in England’s past.

About Nancy Bilyeau

Nancy Bilyeau has worked on the staffs of Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Good Housekeeping. Most recently, she served as deputy editor at InStyle magazine. Her screenplays have placed in several prominent industry competitions. Two scripts reached the semi-finalist round of the Nicholl Fellowships of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her screenplay "Loving Marys" reached the finalist stage with Page International Screenwriting Awards and Scriptapalooza. A native of the Midwest, she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. The Crown is her first novel.

Some earlier milestones: In 1661, Nancy's ancestor, Pierre Billiou, emigrated from France to what was then New Amsterdam when he and his family sailed on the St. Jean de Baptiste to escape persecution for their Protestant beliefs. Pierre built the first stone house on Staten Island and is considered the borough's founder. His little white house is on the national register of historic homes and is still standing to this day.

Nancy lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

For more information, please visit Nancy Bilyeau's WEBSITE.

Giveaway Information

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on January 15th.

Good luck to you all and enjoy the tour!

Kick-off day for At the Mercy of the Queen Virtual Book Tour w/Giveaway!

2012-01-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the kick-off day for Anne Clinard Barnhill's Virtual Book Tour for her novel, At the Mercy of the Queen, which is being released today in stores! Please join me in saying Happy Release Day to Anne!

Today I have the pleasure of hosting a giveaway of Anne's wonderful novel and one lucky reader will be winning a copy of At the Mercy of the Queen: A Novel of Anne Boleyn!

To follow the tour fun on the blogosphere, the tour schedule can be found HERE!

About At the Mercy of the Queen

SYNOPSIS

A sweeping tale of sexual seduction and intrigue at the court of Henry VIII, At the Mercy of the Queen is a rich and dramatic debut historical about Madge Shelton, cousin and lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn.

At the innocent age of fifteen, Lady Margaret Shelton arrives at the court of Henry VIII and quickly becomes the confidante of her cousin, Queen Anne Boleyn. But she soon finds herself drawn into the perilous web of Anne’s ambition.

Desperate to hold onto the king’s waning affection, Anne schemes to have him take her guileless young cousin as mistress, ensuring her husband’s new paramour will owe her loyalty to the queen. But Margaret has fallen deeply in love with a handsome young courtier. She is faced with a terrible dilemma: give herself to the king and betray the love of her life or refuse to become his mistress and jeopardize the life of the her cousin, Queen Anne.

About Anne Clinard Barnhill

Anne Clinard Barnhill has been writing or dreaming of writing for most of her life. For the past twenty years, she has published articles, book and theater reviews, poetry, and short stories. Her first book, AT HOME IN THE LAND OF OZ, recalls what it was like growing up with an autistic sister. Her work has won various awards and grants. Barnhill holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Besides writing, Barnhill also enjoys teaching, conducting writing workshops, and facilitating seminars to enhance creativity. She loves spending time with her three grown sons and their families. For fun, she and her husband of thirty years, Frank, take long walks and play bridge. In rare moments, they dance.

For more information, please visit Anne Clinard Barnhill's WEBSITE.

Giveaway Information

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on January 13th.

Good luck to you all and enjoy the tour!

I've got giveaway winners (yes, finally!)

2011-12-11T14:58:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! I am so sorry that it's taken me so long to announce these giveaway winners! Life has been a bit bonkers lately for me - I am working on a lot of tours for my tour company, HF Virtual Book Tours, and my other job has been busy as well, plus I've been working on something else that will be announced soon.

Anywho, here are the lucky winners of the most recent giveaways on Passages to the Past:

The winner of Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray is...

Amanda Ferris

The winner of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer is...

Andrea Connell

The winner of The Hypnotist by MJ Rose...

Wendy from Wendy's Fiction Addiction

The winner of The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner is...

Siobian from The Owl Bookmark Blog

The winner of For the King by Catherine Delors is...

MamaMunky

The winner of Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell is...

Julie from Read Handed Librarian

CONGRATULATIONS to all of the winners, emails have been sent your way!

Thanks to all who entered and helped spread the word and to the publishers who provided giveaway copies.

Mailbox Monday

2011-11-28T08:04:00.001-05:00

Another Monday, Another Mailbox!! Mailbox Monday is a feature where we gush about the yummy new books that now grace our bookshelves! WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to extreme envy and GINORMOUS wishlists!!

For the month of November, Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Marcia at the Mailbox Monday website. Next month's host will be my friend Jenny Q at her blog, Let Them Read Books.

Hello, dear readers! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! I had a great time seeing my family in Florida and am still stuffed from all the delicious food we ate, but isn't that what it's all about?!

For this Mailbox Monday I have a new e-ARC that I received from NetGalley...The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak. This will be my first read on Catherine the Great and I hope it's a good introduction.

Release Date: January 10, 2012

SYNOPSIS

From award-winning author Eva Stachniak comes this passionate novel that illuminates, as only fiction can, the early life of one of history’s boldest women. The Winter Palace tells the epic story of Catherine the Great’s improbable rise to power—as seen through the ever-watchful eyes of an all-but-invisible servant close to the throne.

Her name is Barbara—in Russian, Varvara. Nimble-witted and attentive, she’s allowed into the employ of the Empress Elizabeth, amid the glitter and cruelty of the world’s most eminent court. Under the tutelage of Count Bestuzhev, Chancellor and spymaster, Varvara will be educated in skills from lock picking to lovemaking, learning above all else to listen—and to wait for opportunity. That opportunity arrives in a slender young princess from Zerbst named Sophie, a playful teenager destined to become the indomitable Catherine the Great. Sophie’s destiny at court is to marry the Empress’s nephew, but she has other, loftier, more dangerous ambitions, and she proves to be more guileful than she first appears.

What Sophie needs is an insider at court, a loyal pair of eyes and ears who knows the traps, the conspiracies, and the treacheries that surround her. Varvara will become Sophie’s confidante—and together the two young women will rise to the pinnacle of absolute power.

With dazzling details and intense drama, Eva Stachniak depicts Varvara’s secret alliance with Catherine as the princess grows into a legend—through an enforced marriage, illicit seductions, and, at last, the shocking coup to assume the throne of all of Russia.

Impeccably researched and magnificently written, The Winter Palace is an irresistible peek through the keyhole of one of history’s grandest tales.

That's my mailbox...what goodies did you receive?

Mailbox Monday

2011-11-20T11:18:00.001-05:00

Hello all, I hope this MM post finds everyone well! It's a chilly day here in Atlanta but we're staying warm by the fireplace. Winter sure did start early this year. So, what are your plans for the Thanksgiving holidays? We are headed down to Florida to visit with our families whom we haven't seen in quite a while, so I'm very excited about that. And of course I'm looking forward to all of the yummy food! My mom and step-dad make a mean Thanksgiving dinner and I'll be contributing with my kick-ass deviled eggs....mmmm :) Whatever your plans may be I hope you have a wonderful Turkey day and safe travels.

For this Mailbox Monday I have only one new addition to report and it's my first e-book for my new Kindle Fire! I got my new Kindle Fire last Tuesday and I've been having so much fun with it, this thing is even studlier than I imagined! I'll be writing up a full review on the Firfe, but so far it's exceeded my expectations. Here is what I am now reading:

The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici

by Elizabeth Lev

Publication Date: October 18, 2011

SYNOPSIS

The astonishing life of a long-misunderstood Renaissance virago...

Wife, mother, leader, warrior. Caterina Riario Sforza was one of the most prominent women in Renaissance Italy—and one of the most vilified. In this glittering biography, Elizabeth Lev reexamines her extraordinary life and accomplishments.

Raised in the court of Milan and wed at age ten to the pope’s corrupt nephew, Caterina was ensnared in Italy’s political intrigues early in life. After turbulent years in Rome’s papal court, she moved to the Romagnol province of Forlì. Following her husband’s assassination, she ruled Italy’s crossroads with iron will, martial strength, political savvy—and an icon’s fashion sense. In finally losing her lands to the Borgia family, she put up a resistance that inspired all of Europe and set the stage for her progeny—including Cosimo de' Medici—to follow her example to greatness.

A rich evocation the Renaissance, The Tigress of Forlì reveals Caterina Riario Sforza as a brilliant and fearless ruler, and a tragic but unbowed figure.

That's my mailbox...what goodies did you receive?

Bookshelf Cleaning Giveaway #3

2011-11-17T08:31:00.001-05:00

Hello, dear readers! I've got another Bookshelf Cleaning Giveaway for you and this time up for grabs is a trio of fabulous HF novels! I've read and LOVED all three books, but due to an oversight I received double copies of each, so I am spreading the love to you!

When you enter to win please let me know which title you are interested in, you can choose all three if you like!

Here are the books included in the giveaway, their formats and condition:

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner - Paperback ARC (with a few small kitten bite marks on one corner. Apparently Jasta kitten thought it was just as yummy as I did :)

For the King by Catherine Delors - Hardcover, finished copy, perfect condition

Claude & Camile: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell - Paperback ARC, perfect condition

About the Books

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by C.W. Gortner

SYNOPSIS: The truth is, not one of us is innocent. We all have sins to confess.

So reveals Catherine de Medici, the last legitimate descendant of her family’s illustrious line. Expelled from her native Florence, Catherine is betrothed to Henri, son of François I of France. In an unfamiliar realm, Catherine strives to create a role for herself through her patronage of the famous clairvoyant Nostradamus and her own innate gift as a seer. But in her fortieth year, Catherine is widowed, left alone with six young children in a kingdom torn apart by the ambitions of a treacherous nobility. Relying on her tenacity, wit, and uncanny gift for compromise, Catherine seizes power, intent on securing the throne for her sons, unaware that if she is to save France, she may have to sacrifice her ideals, her reputation, and the secret of her embattled heart.

For the King

by Catherine Delors

SYNOPSIS: From the author of the critically acclaimed Mistress of the Revolution comes a spellbinding historical thriller set in post- revolutionary Paris.

For her first novel, Mistress of the Revolution, which the Associated Press dubbed one of the "best reads of the year," Catherine Delors earned comparisons to Tracy Chevalier and Philippa Gregory. In For the King, she again demonstrates her matchless ability to illuminate key turning points in history while weaving a gripping story about a man caught between his heart and his integrity.

The Reign of Terror has ended, and Napoléon Bonaparte has seized power, but shifting political loyalties still tear apart families and lovers. On Christmas Eve 1800, a bomb explodes along Bonaparte's route, narrowly missing him but striking dozens of bystanders. Chief Inspector Roch Miquel, a young policeman with a bright future and a beautiful mistress, must arrest the assassins before they attack again. Complicating Miquel's investigation are the maneuverings of his superior, the redoubtable Fouché, the indiscretions of his own father, a former Jacobin, and two intriguing women.

Based on real events and characters and rich with historical detail, For the King takes readers through the dark alleys and glittering salons of post-revolutionary Paris and is a timeless epic of love, betrayal, and redemption.

Claude & Camile: A Novel of Monet

by Stephanie Cowell

SYNOPSIS: Sometimes he dreamt he held her; that he would turn in bed and she would be there. But she was gone and he was old. Nearly seventy. Only cool paint met his fingers. “Ma très chère . . .” Darkness started to fall, dimming the paintings. He felt the crumpled letter in his pocket. “I loved you so,” he said. “I never would have had it turn out as it did. You were with all of us when we began, you gave us courage. These gardens at Giverny are for you but I’m old and you’re forever young and will never see them. . . .”

In the mid-nineteenth century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his father’s nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his father’s will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiated the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris.

But once there he is confronted with obstacles: an art world that refused to validate his style, extreme poverty, and a war that led him away from his home and friends. But there were bright spots as well: his deep, enduring friendships with men named Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet – a group that together would come to be known as the Impressionists, and that supported each other through the difficult years. But even more illuminating was his lifelong love, Camille Doncieux, a beautiful, upper-class Parisian girl who threw away her privileged life to be by the side of the defiant painter and embrace the lively Bohemian life of their time.

His muse, his best friend, his passionate lover, and the mother to his two children, Camille stayed with Monet—and believed in his work—even as they lived in wretched rooms, were sometimes kicked out of those, and often suffered the indignities of destitution. She comforted him during his frequent emotional torments, even when he would leave her for long periods to go off on his own to paint in the countryside.

But Camille had her own demons – secrets that Monet could never penetrate, including one that when eventually revealed would pain him so deeply that he would never fully recover from its impact. For though Camille never once stopped loving the painter with her entire being, she was not immune to the loneliness that often came with being his partner.

A vividly-rendered portrait of both the rise of Impressionism and of the artist at the center of the movement, Claude and Camille is above all a love story of the highest romantic order.

Giveaway Information

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).
- Please tell me which book you are entering the giveaway for, you can choose all three if you'd like.

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on November 28th.

Cover unveiled for The Queen's Vow by C.W. Gortner!

2011-11-11T15:45:00.001-05:00

Check out the gorgeous cover of the C.W. Gortner's upcoming release of The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile! I hope it is the final cover because I love it!

The release date is June 12, 2012 and I, for one, will be counting down the days!

Review: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

2011-11-10T14:55:00.001-05:00

The Dovekeepers
by Alice Hoffman

Release Date: October 4, 2011
Scribner Publishing
512p

SYNOPSIS

Over five years in the writing, The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel.

In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.

The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love. The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s masterpiece.

REVIEW

Never before has a book entranced me the way The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman has. I’ve literally just finished reading this book and I can’t get my mind to settle down. It’s almost as if I’ve ran a race, my adrenaline is pumping and my heart beating a mile a minute, scenes from the book keep going around and around in my head. My urgent need to tell everyone about this beautifully haunting book is taking over all other thoughts, so I need to get this review out before I explode!

Alice Hoffman is the author of Practical Magic and The Red Garden, plus many, many other novels but The Dovekeepers is her first historical fiction work. Hoffman was inspired by a trip to Jerusalem, when she visited a place called Masada, a fortress built by Herod the Great that is situated on top of a large mountain, where a group of nine hundred Jews in the first century CE, who had fled their homelands from the invading Romans converged together to escape the slaughter of their people.

The Dovekeepers is the story of four women – Aziza, the girl-warrior; Shirah, the Witch of Moab; Yael, the lioness; and Revka, the revenging mother – who came to Masada after their homes and towns were destroyed, each arriving a completely different woman than who they had been before the invasion. They tell the stories of their own life, prior to and including their time in Masada, up to that fateful day and each story is more haunting and profound than the next. Hoffman’s writing is among the most exquisite I have ever read! She has expertly woven a tale of tragedy and hope, hate and love, magic and human nature and I was mesmerized by every word.

This book should come with a warning as it has the power to thoroughly enthrall a reader, causing them to block out the world around them completely. My household chores were abandoned, husband and child ignored, I was just absorbed into the pages of this novel that everything else took a backseat to the fascinating story enfolding in front of me.

I cried when I finished the novel, not only because of the sad fate of the people of Masada, but because I will miss these four bold and unyielding women. I will carry their story in my heart forever.

Review: The Queen's Gamble by Barbara Kyle

2011-11-09T14:37:00.000-05:00

The Queen's Gamble (Book #4, Thornleigh Series)

by Barbara Kyle

Release Date: September 1, 2011

Kensington Publishing

448p

SYNOPSIS

Young Queen Elizabeth I's path to the throne has been a perilous one, and already she faces a dangerous crisis. French troops have landed in Scotland to quell a rebel Protestant army, and Elizabeth fears once they are entrenched on the border, they will invade England.

Isabel Thornleigh has returned to London from the New World with her Spanish husband, Carlos Valverde, and their young son. Ever the queen's loyal servant, Isabel is recruited to smuggle money to the Scottish rebels. Yet Elizabeth's trust only goes so far—Isabel's son will be the queen's pampered hostage until she completes her mission. Matters grow worse when Isabel's husband is engaged as military advisor to the French, putting the couple on opposite sides in a deadly cold war.

MY REVIEW

The newest installment of Barbara Kyle’s Thornleigh series, The Queen’s Gamble, is a great historical mystery novel set in the early reign of Elizabeth I. Readers meet up again with the Thornleigh family, but this time it’s the Thornleigh’s daughter, Isabel, and their son-in-law, Carlos, who are in the spotlight. Isabel has been blackmailed by the queen into aiding the rebels in Scotland who are fighting the French (and thus keeping them too busy to invade England) and her husband, Carlos, is called upon by duty to assist his lord, the French king. Spouses now find themselves on either side of a war neither of them wants and their small family is now at the mercy of a queen who will do anything to save her country. Beyond the religious strife running rampant through England and the threat of an invading French army, there is also inner-conflict within the Thornleigh family that makes for some interesting reading!

This is my second foray into the Thornleigh series and I have found both books to be really enjoyable. All four novels can be read as stand-alone novels, and while I don't feel I missed anything with not reading the first two books, I still wish that I had more knowledge on the background of the characters.

Historical mysteries are great escape reads for me, fictional characters set during real historical events, and Kyle has a real talent for writing page-turning action. All in all, I found The Queen’s Gamble to be a fun and entertaining read, jam packed with intrigue and adventure and I am looking forward to the next book in the series!

For more information on Barbara Kyle and her novels, please visit her WEBSITE.

Kick-Off Day for the Virtual Book Tour for THE HYPNOTIST by M.J. Rose + GIVEAWAY

2011-11-08T00:01:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Virtual Book Tour kick-off for The Hypnotist by international-bestselling author, M.J. Rose! M.J. will be touring with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for her latest book in the Reincarnationist series from November 8th to December 13th. There are some fabulous blogs on this tour so be sure to check out the schedule below to follow the tour fun!

To kick off this tour right Passages to the Past is hosting a giveaway for one delicious copy of The Hypnotist! Giveaway information will be located after the tour schedule below.

About The Hypnotist

SYNOPSIS: An FBI agent, tormented by a death he wasn't able to prevent, a crime he's never been able to solve and a love he's never forgotten, discovers that his true conflict resides not in his past, but in a…Past Life.

Haunted by a twenty-year old murder of a beautiful young painter, Lucian Glass keeps his demons at bay through his fascinating work as a Special Agent with the FBI's Art Crime Team. Currently investigating a crazed art collector who has begun destroying prized masterworks, Glass is thrust into a bizarre hostage negotiation that takes him undercover at the Phoenix Foundation—dedicated to the science of past life study—where, in order to maintain his cover, he agrees to submit to the treatment of a hypnotist.

Under hypnosis, Glass travels from ancient Greece to 19th century Persia, while the case takes him from New York to Paris and the movie capital of world. These journeys will change his very understanding of reality, lead him to question his own sanity and land him at the center of perhaps the most audacious art heist in history: the theft of a 1,500 year old sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

International bestselling author M. J. Rose's The Hynpotist is her most mesmerizing novel yet. An adventure, a love story, a clash of cultures, a spiritual quest, it is above all a thrilling capstone to her unique Reincarnation novels, The Reincarnationist and The Memorist.

About M.J. Rose

M.J. Rose, is the international bestselling author of 10 novels; Lip Service, In Fidelity, Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed, The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fix, The Reincarnationist, and The Memorist. She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. Rose has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer News Hour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USA Today, Stern, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly. She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.

The Hypnotist Virtual Tour Schedule

Tuesday, November 8th

Tour Kickoff & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, November 9th

Review at A Chick Who Reads

Thursday, November 10th

Review at Theresa's Reading Corner

Friday, November 11th

Author Guest Post at A Chick Who Reads

Monday, November 14th

Review at Book Den

Tuesday, November 15th

Review at A Journey Into Reading

Wednesday, November 16th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Books Devoured

Thursday, November 17th

Author Guest Post at Book Den

Friday, November 18th

Review at Confessions of an Avid Reader

Tuesday, November 22nd

Review at A Bookish Affair

Wednesday, November 23rd

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Confessions of an Avid Reader

Thursday, November 24th

Review at Books Devoured

Friday, November 25th

Author Interview & Giveaway at A Bookish Affair

Monday, November 28th

Review at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Tuesday, November 29th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Alive on the Shelves

Wednesday, November 30th

Review at The Owl Bookmark Blog

Thursday, December 1st

Review at A Few More Pages

Friday, December 2nd

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Bippity Boppity Book

Monday, December 5th

Author Guest Post at A Few More Pages

Tuesday, December 6th

Review at The True Book Addict

Wednesday, December 7th

Author Interview and Giveaway at The Owl Bookmark Blog

Thursday, December 8th

Review at Bippity Boppity Book

Review at Alive on the Shelves

Friday, December 9th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at The True Book Addict

Monday, December 12th

Review at Reflections of a Bookaholic

Tuesday, December 13th

Review at Just One More Paragraph

*You can follow the tour on Twitter at #TheHypnotistVirtualTour

Giveaway Information

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on November 18th.

Good luck to you all and enjoy the tour!

2012 Release: The Spymaster's Daughter by Jeane Westin

2011-11-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

The Spymaster's Daughter

by Jeane Westin

Release Date: August 7, 2012

SYNOPSIS

Danger and intrigue in the Tudor court of Elizabeth I, from the author of His Last Letter.

In Tudor England, traitors are everywhere and the queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, is assembling the greatest intelligence-gathering network in the world. Walsingham’s daughter, Lady Frances Sidney, smart, courageous, and unhappy in love, longs for the excitement of decoding encrypted messages and setting traps for those working for rival Mary, Queen of Scots. When Elizabeth makes her a lady-in-waiting, Frances seizes the chance to prove herself. She will risk her father’s condemnation, her heart’s longing, and her very life to safeguard her queen.

2012 Release: The Queen's Lover by Francine du Plessix Gray

2011-11-07T13:01:00.000-05:00

The Queen's Lover

by Francine du Plessix Gray

Release Date: June 14, 2012

SYNOPSIS

The Queen’s Lover begins at a masquerade ball in Paris in 1774, when the dashing Swedish nobleman Count Axel von Fersen first meets the mesmerizing nineteen-year-old Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, wife of the shy, reclusive prince who will soon become Louis XVI. This electric encounter launches a lifelong romance that will span the course of the French Revolution.

The affair begins in friendship, however, and Fersen quickly becomes a devoted companion to the entire royal family. As he roams the halls of Versailles and visits the private haven of Le Petit Trianon, Fersen discovers the deepest secrets of the court, even learning the startling, erotic details of Marie Antoinette’s marriage to Louis XVI. But the events of the American Revolution tear Fersen away. Moved by the cause, he joins French troops in the fight for American independence. When he returns, he finds France on the brink of disintegration. After the Revolution of 1789 the royal family is moved from Versailles to the Tuileries. Fersen devises an escape for the family and their young children (Marie-Thérèse and the Dauphin—whom many suspect is in fact Fersen’s son). The failed attempt leads to a more grueling imprisonment, and the family spends its excruciating final days captive before the King and Queen meet the guillotine.

Grieving his lost love in his native Sweden, Fersen begins to sense the effects of the French Revolution in his homeland. Royalists are now targets, and the sensuous world of his youth is fast vanishing. Fersen is incapable of realizing that centuries of tradition have disappeared, and he pays dearly for his naïveté, losing his life at the hands of a savage mob that views him as a pivotal member of the aristocracy. Scion of Sweden’s most esteemed nobility, Fersen came to be seen as an enemy of the country he loved. His fate is symbolic of the violent speed with which the events of the eighteenth century transformed European culture. Expertly researched and deeply imagined, The Queen’s Lover is a fresh vision of the French Revolution and the French royal family as told through the love story that was at its center.

Shadows Walking Virtual Book Tour Starts Tomorrow!

2011-11-06T16:51:00.000-05:00

Please join author Douglas R. Skopp as he tours with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for his novel, Shadows Walking, from November 7th - November 28th!

About Shadows Walking

Release Date: December 21, 2010
Paperback | 482 pages

SYNOPSIS: Johann Brenner, an idealistic physician and ardent German nationalist, has joined the Nazi Party and willingly participated in its "crimes against humanity." His Jewish childhood friend, Philipp Stein, has also become a doctor. Their lives inevitably intersect until their last, fateful meeting.

After the war, Brenner, with stolen papers and a new name, has become a janitor in the courthouse where the Nuremberg Trials are being held. Hoping to "heal himself" and wishing to begin a new life with his estranged wife, he decides that he must write her a letter telling what he has done and why.

Brenner's letter sets the theme for each chapter of Shadows Walking. Through his letter, we see him admit his choices and their consequences as he slips deeper and deeper into the brutality of the Third Reich.

Click HERE to read the first chapter.

About Douglas R. Skopp

With an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree at Connecticut College, Doug began his career as a college professor in 1964 at Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut. After three years, he began doctoral studies in European History at Brown University. With a Social Science Research Council Award, Doug researched the history of German elementary education in the mid-nineteenth century. He began teaching at SUNY Plattsburgh in 1972 and received a doctorate from Brown in 1974. Retiring in 2006 from SUNY Plattsburgh with the rank of Distinguished University Teaching Professor of History, Doug taught all levels of history courses and received many awards, including the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and a Fulbright Senior Scholar/Teacher Award to study medical ethics and practices in Germany between 1880 and 1945. During his Fulbright year in Germany, Doug began the research which underpins his novel, Shadows Walking. In 1998, Doug was an inaugural Fellow in SUNY Plattsburgh’s Institute for Ethics and Public Life and, even though retired, he continues to assist in the Institute’s “guided inquiry” faculty seminars on ethics, ethical practices, and the curriculum, as well as serve as SUNY Plattsburgh’s College Historian.

Please visit Douglas R. Skopp @ WEBSITE | FACEBOOK PAGE | TWITTER

Shadows Walking Virtual Tour Schedule

Monday, November 7th
Review at Impressions in Ink

Thursday, November 10th
Review at Small World Reads

Monday, November 14th
Review at A Bookish Affair

Thursday, November 17th
Review at The Book Garden

Monday, November 21st
Author Interview at A Bookish Affair

Thursday, November 24th
Review at Confessions of a Book Hoarder

Monday, November 28th
Author Guest Post at Confessions of a Book Hoarder

*Follow the tour on Twitter at #ShadowsWalkingVirtualTour.

I hope to see everyone around the fabulous blogs we have on the tour!

2012 NF Release: The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Rennasaince by Leonie Frieda

2011-11-03T16:15:00.005-04:00

The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

by Leonie Frieda

Release Date: April 12, 2012

SYNOPSIS

The book is one of drama on a grand scale, a Renaissance epic, as Christendom emerged from the shadows of the calamitous 14th century. The sweeping tale involves inspired and corrupt monarchs, the finest thinkers, the most brilliant artists, and the greatest beauties in Christendom. Here are the stories of its most remarkable women, who are all joined by birth, marriage and friendship and who ruled for a time in place of their men-folk: Lucrezia Turnabuoni (Queen Mother of Florence, the power behind the Medici throne), Clarice Orsini (Roman princess, feudal wife), Beatrice d'Este (Golden Girl of the Renaissance), Caterina Sforza (Lioness of the Romagna), Isabella d'Este (the Acquisitive Marchesa), Giulia Farnese ('la bella', the family asset), Isabella d'Aragona (the Weeping Duchess) and Lucrezia Borgia (the Virtuous Fury). The men play a secondary role in this grand saga; whenever possible the action is seen through the eyes our heroines. These eight women experienced great riches, power and the warm smile of fortune, but they also knew banishment, poverty, the death of a husband or the loss of one or more of their children. As each of the chosen heroines comes to the fore in her turn, she is handed the baton by her 'sister' and Leonie Frieda recounts the role each woman played in the hundred-year drama that is THE DEADLY SISTERHOOD.

2012 NF Release: The King's Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin by Elizabeth C. Goldsmith

2011-11-02T19:25:00.000-04:00

The King's Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin

by Elizabeth C. Goldsmith

Release Date: April 3, 2012

SYNOPSIS

The little-known story of two spirited sisters who flaunted every social convention of 17th century Europe in their determination to live independentlyThe Mancini sisters, Marie and Hortense, were born in Rome, brought to the court of Louis XIV of France at Versailles, and strategically married off by their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, to secure his political power base. Such was the life of many young woman of the age: they had no independent status under the law, and were entirely a part of their husband's property once married.

Marie and Hortense, however, had another lifestyle in mind altogether. Abandoning their husbands, they took to the road, using the brand new post coach service to ferry them across Europe. Hortense was a famous gambler, the women often dressed and passed as men, and their scandalous behavior became a sensation.

Elizabeth Goldsmith has written a vibrant biography of two pioneering free spirits, feminists long before the term existed, who refused to be constrained by the morals, mores, and hypocrisies of their age.

About the Author...

Elizabeth C. Goldsmith is a professor of French and director of the study abroad curriculum at Boston University. She has written books on literature in the age of Louis XIV, focusing on letter correspondences and women's writing. She teaches courses on seventeenth-century theater and the novel, travel writing, and historical fiction.

Guest Post by Gillian Bagwell, author of The September Queen

2011-11-01T18:12:00.001-04:00

Dear readers, I am so pleased to bring you a guest post by author Gillian Bagwell in honor of her latest release, The September Queen, which hit stores today! I read and reviewed The September Queen recently and thought it was just fabulous. You can read my review HERE.

Happy Release Day, Gillian! The floor is yours...

Riding Pillion

I was thrilled that when my agent sold my first novel, The Darling Strumpet, she also sold my second book, as yet unwritten, and I was very excited to have the opportunity to write the first fictional account of Jane Lane, an ordinary Staffordshire girl who risked her life to help the young Charles II escape after the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651.

When I first read about Jane’s part in Charles’s adventures, I was intrigued by the references to her “riding pillion” with Charles. What did that mean? Even more confusing, some sources mentioned them riding on “a double horse” or “a double gelding.” What?! Can’t a horse only be gelded once? It was obvious that somehow Jane was riding behind Charles on a horse, but I had no idea how that would actually work, and since their long days riding together were a very important part of the story, I had to find out as much as I could.

Jane and Charles, painted by Isaac Fuller

I Googled “pillion” and “riding pillion,” hoping to find some useful images. What came up was pictures of motorcycles, with or without riders! Obviously the terminology that had once been applied to riding horses had been transferred to more modern forms of getting around.

Pillion Saddle

As soon as I knew I was going to be writing the book, I embarked on a research trip to England, as some of the places associated with my story would be shortly closing for the winter, and traveling around England wouldn’t get any easier as it got colder, wetter, and darker. While my friend Alice Northgreaves and I were zooming around the countryside trying to follow the route that Jane Lane and Charles II had taken, we were making inquiries by email about pillions – and especially whether I might be able to get the chance to experience in person how Jane had ridden.

My quest for information lit up email lists and organizations all over England and the U.S., as one helpful person referred us to someone else. We talked to museums, libraries, riding stables, sidesaddle associations, historical re-enactors, and equine experts and enthusiasts of every kind, and soon, we had quite a lot of very useful information, and some wonderful pictures.

Pillion Saddle

The word “pillion” comes from the Irish Gaelic word “pillin,” the diminutive of “pell,” meaning couch, pallet, or cushion. This is logical, as the earliest form of a pillion was a simple pad placed behind the saddle, so that two people could ride one horse. Eventually the structure became more elaborate, with the pillion strapped to the back of the saddle and secured under the horse’s tail by a crupper. The person riding pillion had to hold onto the rider in front (and sometimes such a rider work a special belt for that purpose) and/or the crupper strap. Some pillions had a specially built handhold. At some point – and definitely by the time Jane Lane was riding with Charles – pillions acquired a little shelf called a planchette which hung down on one side of the horse, for the feet of the person riding in back. It is thought that this whole arrangement was the basis for the design of the earliest sidesaddles.

Riding pillion was a standard form of transportation for centuries, most frequently allowing a woman to ride behind a man. But Jim Myers, AKA Duke Eringlin of the Society for Creative Anachronism, also sent me some 13th century images of Knights Templar riding two on a horse, which they apparently did for reasons connected to vows of poverty, and a 14th century image of St. George and “a coffee bearer,” as he jocosely referred to the smaller male companion.

It would not have been very comfortable to ride pillion for a very long time and it would not have been practical to go at much more than a walk.

According to Lynda Fjelman pillions are still used during festivals in Spain and Mexico today, but are just a pad without a footrest, on which the ladies sit sideways in their frilly dresses. The use of the pillion came to the Americas from Spain, and pillions were used in Spanish colonies in North and South America.

Several equestrian people told me that they had occasionally ridden or observed other people doing what is now called “riding double,” i.e., having a second person perched on a horse behind the rider in the saddle. Though another way of having two people on one horse is to have the second person in front of the person in the saddle, none of the 16th and 17th century pictures I saw showed that arrangement. This is interesting, as Natalie Wooldrige told me “Most riding horses will have no issue with someone riding in front of the rider but I've seen them really come unglued when the person is sitting on their butt!”

I never did get the chance to ride pillion myself. But from what I learned, it’s clear that Jane’s travels with Charles, when they were riding 30 miles or more a day, were probably quite uncomfortable, although perhaps the discomfort was tempered by the excitement of cozying up to the handsome young exiled king.

Sources: Many people in the equestrian and historical reenactment communities, including the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Sidesaddle Association, and the American Sidesaddle Association, gallantly came to my aid. Natalie Wooldridge, known in the SCA as Lady Ariadne De Glevo, gave me lots of information about horse breeds, their gaits and speeds, how much ground a horse could travel in a day, etc., as well as riding pillion, and sent me a wonderful photo of Steve and Jean Emmit in beautiful period garb on a caparisoned horse, he astride and she riding pillion. Mike Glasson of the Walsall Leather Museum sent me some photos of pillions. Margie Beeson sent me information about and photos of pillions provided by Rhonda of the ASA. Others who helped along the way were archivist Sue Hurley of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers, Jeremy Smith at the Guildhall Library, Karol Kafka of California Aside, Stephanie Hutcherson at Georgia Ladies Aside, Melodee Spevak, VP Marti Friddle of the ASA, Jim Myers, Lynda Fjellman, Jane Pryor and Shirley Oultram of the SA, Jo Strange of Hazlemere in Surrey, Frances Dorrian, and King’s Saddlery in Walsall. Gillian Bagwell’s novel The September Queen, the first fictional account of Jane Lane, will be released on November 1.

Please visit her website, www.gillianbagwell.com, to read more about her books and read her blog Jane Lane and the Royal Miracle www.theroyalmiracle.blogspot.com, which recounts her research adventures and the daily episodes in Charles’s flight to freedom.

About The September Queen...

SYNOPSIS: Charles II is running for his life-and into the arms of a woman who will risk all for king and country.

Jane Lane is of marrying age, but she longs for adventure. She has pushed every potential suitor away-even those who could provide everything for her. Then one day, adventure makes its way to her doorstep, and with it comes mortal danger...

Royalists fighting to restore the crown to King Charles II implore Jane to help. Jane must transport him to safety, disguised as a manservant. As she places herself in harm's way, she finds herself falling in love with the gallant young Charles. And despite his reputation as a breaker of hearts, Jane finds herself surrendering to a passion that will change her life forever.

About Gillian Bagwell...

Photo Credit: Brendan Elms

Gillian Bagwell grew up in Berkeley, California, and began her professional life as an actress, studying at the University of California Berkeley and the Drama Studio London at Berkeley before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film and television. She moved into directing and producing theatre, founding The Pasadena Shakespeare Company, where she served as artistic director for nine years, producing thirty-seven critically acclaimed productions.

She united her life-long love of books, British history, and theatre in writing her first novel, The Darling Strumpet, based on the life of Nell Gwynn. Her second novel, The September Queen, is the first fictional account of the perilous and romantic odyssey of Jane Lane, an ordinary English girl who risked her life to help the young Charles II escape after the disastrous Battle of Worcester in 1651 by disguising him as her servant. Gillian recently returned to Berkeley and is at work on her third novel, about the formidable four-times widowed Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick.

For more information on Gillian and her novels, please visit her WEBSITE. For more information on The September Queen, please visit the Jane Lane and the Royal Miracle Blog.

2 exciting new HF releases in 2012!

2011-10-31T16:32:00.000-04:00

Hey dear readers, I've got 2 new exciting HF releases to tell you all about! One is from D.L. Bogdan, who I am a big fan of and the other is Brandy Purdy whose next novel is on Amy Dudley and set during the reign of my favorite Queen Elizabeth.

Brandy Purdy will be touring with HF Virtual Book Tours for this novel and I am thrilled to be working with her on this tour!

The Sumerton Women

by D.L. Bogdan

Release Date: April 24, 2012

SYNOPSIS

Orphaned at age eight, Lady Cecily Burkhart becomes the ward of Harold Pierce, Earl of Sumerton. Lord Hal and his wife, Lady Grace, welcome sweet-natured Cecily as one of their own. With Brey, their young son, Cecily develops an easy friendship. But their daughter, Mirabella, is consumed by her religious vocation—and by her devotion to Father Alec Cahill, the family priest and tutor.

As Henry VIII’s obsession with Anne Boleyn leads to violent religious upheaval, Mirabella is robbed of her calling and the future Cecily dreamed of is ripped away in turn. Cecily struggles to hold together the fractured household while she and Father Alec grapple with a dangerous mutual attraction. Plagued with jealousy, Mirabella unleashes a tumultuous chain of events that threatens to destroy everyone around her, even as the kingdom is
torn apart…

The Queen's Pleasure

by Brandy Purdy

Release Date: July 2012

SYNOPSIS

When young Robert Dudley, an earl’s son, meets squire’s daughter Amy Robsart, it is love at first sight. They marry despite parental misgivings, but their passion quickly fades, and the ambitious Dudley returns to court.

Swept up in the turmoil of Tudor politics, Dudley is imprisoned in the Tower. Also a prisoner is Dudley’s childhood playmate, the princess Elizabeth. In the shadow of the axe, their passion ignites. When Elizabeth becomes queen, rumors rage that Dudley means to free himself of Amy in order to wed her. And when Amy is found dead in unlikely circumstances, suspicion falls on Dudley—and the Queen…

Still hotly debated amongst scholars—was Amy’s death an accident, suicide, or murder?—the fascinating subject matter makes for an enthralling read for fans of historical fiction.

Mailbox Monday

2011-10-30T15:24:00.000-04:00

Another Monday, Another Mailbox!! Mailbox Monday is a feature where we gush about the yummy new books that now grace our bookshelves! WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to extreme envy and GINORMOUS wishlists!!

Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Serena from the wonderful blog, Saavy Verse & Wit, for the month of October.

Hey everyone, I hope you are all well! I only have one new addition to report, but it's one that I've been really wanting to read and so far I'm enjoying it very much.

The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

Release Date: January 10, 2012

SYNOPSIS

In this debut historical thriller, an aristocratic young nun must find a legendary crown in order to save her father’s life and preserve all she holds dear from Cromwell’s ruthless terror.

When novice nun Joanna Stafford learns her rebel cousin is condemned by King Henry VIII to be burned at the stake, she makes the decision to break the sacred rule of enclosure and run away from her Dominican Order in Dartford to stand at her cousin’s side.

Arrested for interfering with king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, Sir Richard Stafford, is sent to the Tower of London. Joanna’s father is brutally tortured by Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester who leads the Catholic faction bent on saving England’s monasteries from destruction. In order to save her father, Joanna must submit to Gardiner’s will and become a pawn in the struggle between religious extremes. Gardiner forces Joanna to return to Dartford Priory with a mission: find the long hidden crown worn by Saxon King Athelstan in AD 937 during the historic battle that first united Britain. Gardiner believes the crown itself to possess a mystical power that will halt the Reformation.

Uncovering only dark betrayals and murder at Dartford, Joanna flees with Brother Edmund, a troubled young friar, and with time running out, their hunt for the crown leads them through royal castles, to Stonehenge, and finally to the tomb of the mysterious King Athelstan under Malmesbury Abbey. There Joanna learns the true secret of the crown, a secret tracing all the way back to Golgotha and the Relics of the Passion. Now, as Cromwell’s army of destruction advances, Joanna must finally determine who to trust and how far she is willing to go to protect a way of life that she passionately loves.

That's my mailbox....what new books did you welcome to your house?

Giveaway Winners!

2011-10-30T08:07:00.000-04:00

It's time to announce the giveaway winners of my latest giveaways! Please help me in congratulating the following...

The winner of Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman is...

Donna from Book Lovers Paradise

The winner of The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley is...

Gwendolyn from A Sea of Books

The winner of The September Queen by Gillian Bagwell is...

Tammy

The winner of His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm is...

Marjorie Stewart Cullen

Congratulations to the winners, emails have been sent your way. Thanks to everyone who entered and helped spread the word and to the authors and publishers who have sponsored the giveaways.

Win a copy of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

2011-10-25T13:22:00.000-04:00

Hello lovely readers, I've got another fun giveaway for you!

Up for grabs this time is one paperback copy of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer!

About the book...

SYNOPSIS

The past is a foreign country. This is your guidebook. A time machine has just transported you back into the fourteenth century. What do you see? How do you dress? How do you earn a living and how much are you paid? What sort of food will you be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? And more important, where will you stay?

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England is not your typical look at a historical period. This radical new approach shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived.

Through the use of daily chronicles, letters, household accounts, and poems of the day, Mortimer transports you back in time, providing answers to questions typically ignored by traditional historians. You will learn how to greet people on the street, what to use as toilet paper, why a physician might want to taste your blood, and how to know whether you are coming down with leprosy.

The result is the most astonishing social history book you’re ever likely to read: revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance, and fear.

Giveaway Information...

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on November 4th.

Good luck to you all!

2012 Release: Keeper of the King's Secrets by Michelle Diener

2011-10-20T08:41:00.002-04:00

Keeper of the King's Secrets

by Michelle Diener

Release Date: February 14, 2012

SYNOPSIS

Susanna Horenbout’s chance meeting with a jeweler from Antwerp pulls her and her betrothed, courtier John Parker, into a deadly plot against the King. Ever since Henry VIII’s sister Mary gave him the spectacular Mirror of Naples, part of the French Crown Jewels, the King of France has been plotting to get it back.

After the French king is captured in battle, the secret deal struck for the jewel’s return is in jeopardy—and French agents in London are taking matters into their own hands. But the powerful Duke of Norfolk has caught wind of the secret deal and sees the planned theft as an opportunity to rid himself of a hated rival at court—even if it means plunging England into an unwinnable war with France.

As Susanna and John Parker desperately search for the jewel, trying to stay one step ahead of the French, they're swept into a power struggle with men who will crush any obstacle to get what they want. And with the fate of Henry's kingship in the balance, they must figure out who Henry's true enemies are—before it's too late.

Guest Post with author Stephanie Dray + Giveaway of Song of the Nile

2011-10-19T06:17:00.001-04:00

Passages to the Past is excited to bring you a guest post by author Stephanie DraySong of the Nile and a giveaway of her latest novel in the Cleopatra's Daughter trilogy!

Take it away, Stephanie...

When the Isle of Samos was the Center of the World
by
Stephanie Dray

If it’s good to be the king, it’s even better to be the emperor. At least in ancient Rome. Unless your guards are waiting for you with daggers, or an angry wife feeds you poisoned mushrooms, you get to be the center of the world...wherever you go.

Now, when we think of the Roman empire--particularly the early Roman empire when there was still a pretense of a Republic--we quite naturally think of Rome as the center of the civilized world. Certainly, Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, would have wanted us to think of it that way.

However, the fact remains that once he’d wrested control away from the Senate and other quasi-democratic institutions, the government was always wherever he went. And in the aftermath of his victory over Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius (aka Mark Antony), the emperor spent quite some time on the Isle of Samos in Greece.

What was so special about this island? Well, for one, it had to be salt in the wound for those who had supported Cleopatra and Antony--because the Isle of Samos is where those two famous lovers made their doomed preparations for war. But it also had a lovely climate, and in spite of his stern Roman values, the emperor liked his creature comforts. (When fighting in the mountains in Spain, for example, he let his soldiers endure the cold while he vacationed down in Tarragona.)

Between the years of 22 BC - 19 BC, however, Augustus had another reason to move his court to the Greek island. Namely, he was preparing for war with Parthia to the East. He needed a relatively secure staging area from which to reorganize the Eastern part of the empire so as to make a stable foothold from which to advance. He had kings to appoint, taxes to levy, people to punish, and territorial boundaries to redraw.

In my new novel, Song of the Nile, my heroine believes that this is the perfect time to convince Augustus to restore her to the throne of Egypt. Like Cleopatra before her, she hopes to convince the Romans that she can provide them with grain in their long-sought war with the Parthians. It’s her experiences there, in Greece, engaged in a high stakes cat and mouse game with the emperor that change her forever.

So how much of that is true? Historically speaking, we have no idea where Cleopatra Selene was during those years before 19BC when she finally appears on the coins of Mauretania, but there are only three options. She may have been in Mauretania with Juba, though some scholars do question this idea and think she married Juba later. She may have been in Rome under the care of the emperor’s sister, Octavia. Or, as a ward of the emperor’s and a member of his court, she may have been on the Isle of Samos.

I chose the latter because it made for a wonderful showdown in my book--a titanic clash between a ruthless, complex, depraved emperor and the girl upon whose shoulders rested the legacy of Cleopatra. I think it made for a wonderful choice, and I hope my readers will agree!

About Song of the Nile (Cleopatra's Daughter #2)

SYNOPSIS

Sorceress. Seductress. Schemer. Cleopatra’s daughter has become the emperor’s most unlikely apprentice and the one woman who can destroy his empire…

Having survived her perilous childhood as a royal captive of Rome, Selene pledged her loyalty to Augustus and swore she would become his very own Cleopatra. Now the young queen faces an uncertain destiny in a foreign land.

Forced to marry a man of the emperor’s choosing, Selene will not allow her new husband to rule in her name. She quickly establishes herself as a capable leader in her own right and as a religious icon. Beginning the hard work of building a new nation, she wins the love of her new subjects and makes herself vital to Rome by bringing forth bountiful harvests.

But it’s the magic of Isis flowing through her veins that makes her indispensable to the emperor. Against a backdrop of imperial politics and religious persecution, Cleopatra’s daughter beguiles her way to the very precipice of power. She has never forgotten her birthright, but will the price of her mother’s throne be more than she’s willing to pay?

About Stephanie Dray...

Stephanie graduated from Smith, a small women’s college in Massachusetts where–to the consternation of her devoted professors–she was unable to master Latin. However, her focus on Middle Eastern Studies gave her a deeper understanding of the consequences of Egypt’s ancient clash with Rome, both in terms of the still-extant tensions between East and West as well as the worldwide decline of female-oriented religion.

Before she wrote novels, Stephanie was a lawyer, a game designer, and a teacher. Now she uses the transformative power of magic realism to illuminate the stories of women in history and inspire the young women of today. She remains fascinated by all things Roman or Egyptian and has–to the consternation of her devoted husband–collected a house full of cats and ancient artifacts.

Giveaway Information...

**To enter the giveaway you must follow Stephanie on her newsletter, Facebook page, or Twitter and please indicate in your comments which one you chose (honor system!).**

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on October 30th.

Author Guest Post by Gabrielle Kimm + Giveaway of His Last Duchess

2011-10-17T00:05:00.000-04:00

Passages to the Past is pleased to bring you a guest post from author Gabrielle Kimm, whose novel His Last Duchess, was released on October 1st by Sourcebooks! In addition, the kind people at Sourcebooks have sponsored a giveaway for a copy of His Last Duchess to one of my lucky followers!

And now, please help me welcome Gabrielle Kimm...

I often get asked, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ My answer is inevitably something along the lines of: ‘It’s not really that I get ideas … they tend to get me.’ For me it works like this: the idea doesn’t exist, and then it does, and then it’s there in my head, and I can’t imagine it ever not being there. That’s probably no help at all to aspiring writers – but it is the truth.

It was certainly like that with the inspiration for ‘His Last Duchess’. One day I had no idea I was going to write a novel, and by the end of the next I had the whole plot structure, the cast of characters, the setting and the era clear in my head. It was a truly extraordinary day.

Although His Last Duchess is a historical novel – it has at its heart the ill-fated marriage of the fifth duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d’Este, and Lucrezia de’ Medici and it takes place in Ferrara in the middle of the sixteenth century – it all actually began with Victorian poet, Robert Browning’s monologue, ‘My Last Duchess’, rather than with historical facts. I came across the characters as Browning’s creations, rather than long-dead, real-life aristocrats, and it was only when I had the idea for the novel, and started researching that I began to piece together the historical truth behind Browning’s fiction.

The actual facts behind Browning’s poem are these: Alfonso d’Este (unnamed in the poem) married Lucrezia de’ Medici in 1559, and less than three years later the poor girl was dead, at the age of seventeen. Historical sources have mixed opinions as to what caused her death: some cite natural causes (tuberculosis, plague and anorexia being some suggestions), but far more historians believe that somebody had a hand in her demise. Most probably, her husband. Alfonso had for several years been under huge pressure to produce an heir, as the powers-that-be in the Vatican had declared that should he produce no legitimate issue, they would reclaim the titles and the lands, leaving the Este family with only the towns of Modena and Reggio in their portfolio. Alfonso would have been horribly aware that, if this were to happen and his rights to Ferrara removed, his extraordinary, hugely powerful, nine-hundred-year old dynasty would be utterly emasculated. In the end, of course, this is exactly what happened.

(Just by the by, in an extraordinary co-incidence, a direct descendent of Cesare d’Este, the cousin who ended up inheriting what was left of the duchy, lives in a village about two miles away from where I live in Sussex. How unlikely is that?! )

Browning’s poem is narrated by the duke. He depicts him talking to the emissary from the father of his second wife-to-be, standing before a portrait of his last duchess – poor dead Lucrezia. He is highly articulate –clearly verbally dextrous, despite his protestations that he has no ‘skill in speech’ – and he seems charming and cultured. He is polite and pleasant to his guest. At the start of the poem, he uses words like ‘wonder’, ‘depth and passion’, and ‘earnest’ to describe his late wife; you get the feeling that he is treasuring her memory as much as he clearly treasures this painted image which is kept so carefully hidden behind a curtain. But then he begins listing the poor woman’s faults, one after another. By the time he has all but openly admitted that he ordered her death, his very courtesy seems menacing, and you can easily imagine the raised heartbeat and the wide-eyed wariness in his listener (who must surely be hoping that he will be allowed to return home safely, having been party to this alarming confession).

For a time I was worried that the character of the duchess, as portrayed by Browning, would not be sustainable across a whole novel. He describes her as having a heart ‘too soon made glad, too easily impressed.’ She liked ‘whate’er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere.’ This worried me. I wanted to stay true to Browning’s creation, as I was specifically planning this book to be the back story to his poem, rather than just to historical facts, and, if I were to remain faithful to the poet’s description, it seemed to me that the duchess would be either an indiscriminate, promiscuous little hussy, or a sort of simple-minded, love-everyone sweetie – a Renaissance Pollyanna, if you like. Neither of these alternatives appealed to me in the slightest.But then it occurred to me – in the small hours of one chilly morning - that the description of the duchess is not Browning’s. It’s the duke’s. And this description of her is being offered by the man who has just admitted to having had her permanently silenced. Did I believe him? Did I trust him? Not in the slightest!

I began to feel that the duke’s view of his wife was fundamentally distorted, either deliberately, in order to blacken her reputation, or unwittingly because of some psychological flaw in his make-up. Discovering what ‘his last duchess’s real personality was like, and finding out exactly why the duke’s view of her is so inaccurate, has been what has entertained me so much in writing this novel. I do hope Mr Browning would have approved of what I’ve done with his characters!

Thank you, Gabrielle, for stopping by with such a fabulous guest post!

ABOUT THE BOOK

The chilling story of Lucrezia de Medici, duchess to Alfonso d'Este, His Last Duchess paints a portrait of a lonely young girl and her marriage to an inscrutable duke. Lucrezia longs for love, Alfonso desperately needs an heir, and in a true story of lust and dark decadence, the dramatic fireworks the marriage kindles threaten to destroy the duke's entire inheritance–and Lucrezia's future. His Last Duchess gorgeously brings to life the passions and people of sixteenth-century Tuscany and Ferrara.

For more information, please visit Gabrielle Kimm's WEBSITE and BLOG.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on October 28th.

GOOD LUCK!

Mailbox Monday

2011-10-16T14:50:00.000-04:00

Another Monday, Another Mailbox!! Mailbox Monday is a feature where we gush about the yummy new books that now grace our bookshelves! WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to extreme envy and GINORMOUS wishlists!!

Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Serena from the wonderful blog, Saavy Verse & Wit, for the month of October.

Hey all! I hope this post finds everyone doing fabulously! Well, I'm not doing too well with this hiatus thing because I can't seem to stay away from the blog, so I'm back with my favorite meme.

Here are the books I have acquired over the past few weeks...

The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

Release Date: March 6, 2012

SYNOPSIS

Like most sisters, Marguerite and Eleanor were rivals.They were also queens.

Raised together at the 13th Century court of their father, Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, Marguerite and Eleanor are separated by royal marriages—but never truly parted.

Patient, perfect, reticent, and used to being first, Marguerite becomes Queen of France. Her husband, Louis IX, is considered the greatest monarch of his age. But he is also a religious zealot who denies himself all pleasure—including the love and companionship his wife so desperately craves. Can Marguerite find enough of her sister’s boldness to grasp her chance for happiness in the guise of forbidden love?

Passionate, strong-willed, and stubborn, Eleanor becomes Queen of England. Her husband, Henry III, is neither as young nor as dashing as Marguerite’s. But she quickly discovers he is a very good man…and a very bad king. His failures are bitter disappointments for Eleanor, who has worked to best her elder sister since childhood. Can Eleanor stop competing with her sister and value what she has, or will she let it slip away?

Queen of the Summer Stars: Book Two of the Guinevere Trilogy

by Persia Woolley

Publication Date: June 1, 2011

SYNOPSIS

In a country still reeling from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the young King Arthur and his wife Guinevere struggle to keep the barbarians at bay even as they establish the Fellowship of the Round Table. The spirited and outspoken Guinevere skillfully combats an accusation of planning to poison Arthur in a country simmering with unrest and scandal. But Guinevere's greatest battles are dangers Arthur cannot see-ones she'll have to fight on her own. And all the while, she must reconcile her thirst for freedom with her duties as queen, and her growing love for Lancelot with her loyalty to her husband. Vibrantly human and touchingly real, Guinevere reigns as a woman poised to discover the true peril and promise of the human heart.

Song of the Nile (Cleopatra's Daughter #2)

by Stephanie Dray

Publication Date: October 4, 2011

SYNOPSIS

Sorceress. Seductress. Schemer. Cleopatra's daughter is the one woman with the power to destroy an empire...

The magic of Isis flowing through her veins is what makes her indispensable to the emperor. Against a backdrop of imperial politics and religious persecution, Cleopatra's daughter beguiles her way to the very precipice of power. She has never forgotten her birthright, but will the price of her mother's throne be more than she's willing to pay?

The Garden Intrigue (Pink Carnation #9)

by Lauren Willig

Release Date: February 16, 2012

SYNOPSIS

As Napoleon pursues his plans for the invasion of England, English operative Augustus Whittlesby gets wind of a top secret device, to be demonstrated over the course of a house party at Malmaison. The catch? The only way in is to join forces with that annoying American socialite, Emma Morris Delagardie, who has been commissioned to write a masque for the weekend’s entertainment. Even so, it should leave plenty of alone time with Augustus’ colleague (and goddess), Jane Wooliston, who has been tapped to play the heroine. Or so Augustus tells himself. In this complicated masque within a masque, nothing seems to go quite as scripted… especially Emma.

The Midwife of Venice

by Roberta Rich

Paperback Release Date: April 3, 2012

SYNOPSIS

Not since The Red Tent or People of the Book has a novel transported readers so intimately into the complex lives of women centuries ago or so richly into a story of intrigue that transcends the boundaries of history. Hannah Levi is renowned for her gift at coaxing reluctant babies from their mothers using her secret “birthing spoons.” When a Christian count implores her to attend his dying wife and save their unborn son, she is torn. A Papal edict forbids Jews from rendering medical treatment to Christians, but the count’s payment is enough to ransom Hannah’s husband, Isaac, who has been captured at sea. Can she refuse her duty to a woman who is suffering? Hannah’s choice entangles her in a treacherous family rivalry that endangers the child and threatens her voyage to Malta, where Isaac, believing her dead in the plague, is preparing to buy his passage to a new life.

Beautifully told with exceptional skill, The Midwife of Venice brings to life a time and a place cloaked in fascination and mystery and introduces a captivating new talent in historical fiction.

Well, that's my mailbox...what goodies did you receive?

Review and Giveaway: The September Queen by Gillian Bagwell

2011-10-11T14:51:00.001-04:00

The September Queen

by Gillian Bagwell

Release Date: November 1, 2011

Berkley Trade

400p

SYNOPSIS

Charles II is running for his life-and into the arms of a woman who will risk all for king and country.

Jane Lane is of marrying age, but she longs for adventure. She has pushed every potential suitor away-even those who could provide everything for her. Then one day, adventure makes its way to her doorstep, and with it comes mortal danger...

Royalists fighting to restore the crown to King Charles II implore Jane to help. Jane must transport him to safety, disguised as a manservant. As she places herself in harm's way, she finds herself falling in love with the gallant young Charles. And despite his reputation as a breaker of hearts, Jane finds herself surrendering to a passion that will change her life forever.

MY REVIEW

When I read and reviewed Gillian Bagwell’s first novel, The Darling Strumpet, last year {READ REVIEW} I knew she would be an author to watch, and boy was I right! Gillian’s sophomore novel of the woman who helped King Charles II escape from the grasp of his enemies and return to his rightful place on the throne of England is an extraordinarily engrossing read!

At twenty-five years of age, Jane Lane still lives at home, is unmarried and unsure of what she wants in life. All she knows is that she isn’t ready to settle down and become a wife to a man that she doesn’t feel passion for. When the exiled and penniless Charles Stuart lands in England to fight for his crown Jane’s royalist family supports his cause and her brothers take up his fight. She’s envious of the freedom their gender enables them and desires more than anything to be able to fight for her king, so when the opportunity arises and Jane is the one person who can help Charles escape from Cromwell’s army, she doesn’t hesitate to accept the challenge. Risking her life and the lives of her family Jane and her cousin race Charles to safety - sidestepping danger and capture along the way.

King Charles II and Jane Lane by Isaac Fuller, NP

Charles would not be Charles if he wasn’t charming a lady out of her chemise and Jane succumbs most willingly to his magnetic allure, and a passionate love affair between the two begins, ignited by the dangerous circumstances they find themselves.

I have read quite a few HF novels on Charles II, but none that dealt with this part of his life or his time with Jane Lane, so this was quite a treat for me. Jane was a fabulous heroine and the sacrifices she made to restore Charles to the throne are what earned her a place as an important figure in the history of England and I am so glad to have read about her. Gillian did a wonderful job of bringing Jane and Charles’s story to life, and it’s such an important story to tell because it shows us that despite the limitations of the female gender in the 17th century a woman can and did affect the history of the world.

My congratulations to Gillian for another fabulous historical fiction novel! I loved The September Queen, it had everything that I look for in a novel – drama, romance, danger and adventure. I devoured it in two sittings and my copy is now sitting comfortably on my keeper shelf. Highly recommended!

**Gillian's next novel will be on the life of the formidable Bess of Hardwick and I, for one, cannot wait!

For more information please visit Gillian Bagwell's WEBSITE

FTC DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thanks to the generous people at Berkley Trade, Passages to the Past has one copy of The September Queen up for grabs!

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on October 24th.

GOOD LUCK!

Guest Post by Susanna Kearsley + Giveaway of The Rose Garden

2011-10-07T01:01:00.000-04:00

I could not be more excited to be hosting my new favorite author, Susanna Kearsley, today on Passages to the Past! Susanna is here with a guest post in honor of the Sourcebooks re-issue of her novel, The Rose Garden!

I recently read Kearsley's novel, The Winter Sea, after seeing all of the rave reviews from my fellow book bloggers and fell in love with her writing! It was such a fabulous story and I am really looking forward to reading the rest of her novels. It is very thrilling for me to have here on my blog and I hope you enjoy the guest post as much as I did!

And thanks to the generous people of Sourcebooks, I have a copy of The Rose Garden to give away to one lucky reader!

And now, please welcome Susanna Kearsley...

Humanizing History

Every so often debates will spring up about the value of historical fiction, and how it compares to historical non-fiction, and whether fiction has any real place in the telling of history.

I won’t get up on my soap-box about all that here (although as both a former museum curator and a historical novelist, I have a few strong opinions) but I truly feel that historical fiction, when done well, puts back into history what the history books sometimes take out of it: the human factor.

Battles are not fought by kings and generals, they are fought by men, who breathe and love and hope and hate and dream, just like the rest of us. The paper records left to us don’t always give a sense of that, and history books concerned with “facts” (as they perceive the facts to be) are really only telling half the story.

One of the best examples I can give of this comes, not from any book I’ve written, but from one of the first historical novels I ever read: Jan Westcott’s The Hepburn. One of the major subplots in that novel tackles the tale of King James IV of Scotland and his mistress (and possibly wife), Margaret Drummond.

At the turn of the 16th century, James IV was in a power struggle with his English counterpart, Henry VII. Henry wanted James to marry Henry’s daughter Margaret. James was noncommittal. The reason for this was no secret, as described by historian Maria Perry in her 1998 book The Sisters of Henry VIII:

“In Scotland it was whispered that real impediment to James’ marriage [to Margaret Tudor] was his love for Margaret Drummond, who had been his mistress since 1496. He was said to be passionately attached to her. Many people believed that her death by poisoning in 1501 was deliberately contrived by courtiers who feared their king would never marry…while she lived.”

So, poor Margaret Drummond, along with her two sisters (who had shared the same breakfast as she had) died of poisoning, and James subsequently married Margaret Tudor. Those are the facts, and historians are limited in how they can present them.

It’s not that historians don’t allow James to have feelings. Some do. Some speculate that James was “stunned” or “devastated” by the death of the woman he patently loved, and some even go further to infer that, because he immediately rushed his and Margaret Drummond’s young daughter to a place of greater safety, and because for the rest of his life he continued to pay priests to sing prayers each year for the repose of Margaret Drummond’s soul, he must have loved her very dearly.

King Henry IV of France

Others, like the 19th century historian Thomas Wright, in his History of Scotland, give

James a very different reaction: “The chain was now broken with which James had so long been bound,” Wright states, “and he prepared eagerly for his marriage.”

But none of the historians, no matter how they try to get inside the head and heart of James IV, can do what Jan Westcott did. Here’s how she had James react to the poisoning of Margaret Drummond, the woman he loved:

“The king came through the curtained doorway. He knocked a chair out of his way. Eufemia’s face was hidden from him, Sybilla was moaning in short quick gasps; the heavy feet of men running sounded from outside. James took Maggie in his arms, he lifted her and carried her from the room where Eufemia already lay dead.

“My darling, my darling,” he whispered. He had taken her on his lap, and she was huddled against him, her legs doubled under her. She crouched on his knees, her arms around his neck, fiercely.

She could not speak. She burrowed against him. Mary came running with a bowl, and James forced Maggie’s head up. He forced her jaws open. She began to retch.

The doctor stood over her. This was the only thing to do; there was nothing more except to pray. He wiped Maggie’s mouth with a towel dipped in rosewater…”

And later in the scene, when Margaret’s dead and we are seeing through the eyes of Mary Gordon, there is this:

“James had lain Maggie on her bed. He was pulling up the white sheet. Mary saw his brown hands on the white linen.

He did not cover her face. Suddenly he tucked the sheet across her breast. He lifted her hands and crossed them. Then he bent down and Mary saw the broad shoulders shaking. Slowly she let the curtain fall back into place.”

It’s been more than thirty years since I read The Hepburn. I haven’t picked it up again until today, to read those words. But I remember every vivid image of that scene, and I have always had a soft spot for King James IV because of it, because I felt his very human grief and glimpsed him, not as a great king, but as a man.

Good history books can teach us many things about the past. Good historical fiction can connect us to it. And that, in my view at least, makes it worth writing.

About The Rose Garden...

Release Date: October 1, 2011

SYNOPSIS

When Eva’s filmstar sister Katrina dies, she leaves California and returns to Trelowarth, Cornwall , where they spent their childhood summers, to scatter Katrina’s ashes and in doing so return her to the place where she belongs.

But Eva must also confront the ghosts from her own past, as well as those from a time long before her own. For the house where she so often stayed as a child is home not only to her old friends the Halletts, but also to the people who had lived there in the eighteenth century. When Eva finally accepts that she is able to slip between centuries and see and talk to the inhabitants from hundreds of years ago, she soon finds herself falling for Daniel Butler, a man who lived – and died – long before she herself was born.

Eva begins to question her place in the present, and in laying her sister to rest, comes to realise that she too must decide where she really belongs, choosing between the life she knows and the past she feels so drawn towards.

*Susanna Kearsley's WEBSITE is really wonderful, so be sure to check it out for more information on the author and her novels.

Giveaway Information...

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on October 17th.

Good luck to all!

Interview with Sharon Kay Penman + Giveaway of Lionheart

2011-10-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

Passages to the Past is tickled pink to welcome author Sharon Kay Penman, whose newest novel, Lionheart, is being released in stores tomorrow! Sharon has graciously stopped by for an interview and thanks to the publisher we have an ARC of Lionheart to give away to one lucky reader!

And now, the Passages to the Past interview with Sharon Kay Penman...

During your research for Lionheart, did you come across anything about Richard I that people would be surprised to know?

I think almost everything about the Richard in Lionheart will be a surprise to my readers. He certainly was a surprise to me. The Richard of legend is like a smoldering torch, glowering, dour, and dangerous. The Richard who appears in the crusader and Saracen chronicles is quite different—with a lively and sardonic sense of humor, unpredictable, playful, and shrewd. I found him to be very complex, a “walking contradiction” like that wonderful Johnny Cash song. He was almost insanely reckless with his own safety, but he was a cautious battle commander, careful with the lives of his soldiers. He was ruthless, but capable of magnanimity, too, hot-tempered but capable of compromise, very prideful—yes, arrogant—but still able to laugh at himself. Not at all the man I expected to find.

What do you most admire about Richard?

I think what I most admired about Richard was his unexpected rapport with his Saracen enemies. Because he’d been the first prince to take the cross, I suppose I was expecting a religious zealot. The real Richard turned out to be a pragmatist, unwilling to assault Jerusalem because he was convinced it could not be taken, that an attack would be sacrificing lives for no purpose. In this, he was utterly at odds with his French allies, who believed they would prevail because they had God on their side. But Richard opened talks with Saladin as soon as he arrived in the Holy Land, arguing that a negotiated settlement was the only way they could gain some of their objectives. I don’t mean to imply he shrank from shedding blood when need be; he was the ultimate warrior-king, after all, and according to military historians, one of the most brilliant battle commanders of the Middle Ages. But he was a realist and saw at once that the crusaders were facing insurmountable strategic and logistical dis-advantages. I also liked the fact that he was so interested in the Saracens and their culture, that he never demonized his enemies as so many of the crusaders did. He actually formed unlikely friendships with Saladin’s brother and some of his emirs, and even knighted several of them—in the midst of a Holy War! But while I find that admirable, his contemporaries did not, and he would pay a high price for it when the returning French spread the word that he’d betrayed Christendom by making a devil’s deal with Saladin.

Did you conduct any research traveling for Lionheart and if so, what was the most inspiring location you visited and why?

I usually do a lot of traveling for research, for I think it helps enormously to see the places I am writing about. Lionheart was the exception. Because I was under such a tight deadline, I was unable to follow in Richard’s footsteps. Fortunately in the Age of the Internet, so much more is available to writers. For example, I wanted to see what the cliffs of Arsuf looked like, and was able to find a video on YouTube which showed men kite-jumping from its heights. I can tell you which location inspired me the most, however, even if I did not see it for myself—Sicily. The 12th century was Sicily’s Golden Age; it was the richest kingdom in Europe at that time, and its rulers enjoyed a lavish and spectacular lifestyle. My research made me very eager to see the palaces of Palermo and the cathedral at Monreale for myself.

Can you give us a tease as to what readers will be treated to in Lionheart’s sequel, A King’s Ransom?

Poor Richard—he had no idea what he was sailing into when he left Acre on that October night in 1192. He’d find himself facing savage storms at sea, an encounter with pirates, and a shipwreck that left him stranded in the lands of his enemies, with only 20 men at his side. And the worst was still to come.

Can you take us through a day in your life while you are writing a novel?

I do not set regular hours for writing as some writers do. I work on a chapter at a time, and I do not put it aside until I am at least 90% satisfied with it; I do not do multiple drafts. When I am ready to begin a chapter, I try to keep the real world at bay until it is done. So for me, the best days are those when I have no distractions and can immerse myself in the Middle Ages; at such times, I wish I had a moat around my house. I might write late into the night if the chapter is going well; I surface from time to time to catch my breath and feed the dogs. Once it is finished, I resume my normal life—or as normal as any writer’s life is—and continue researching until I am ready to dive into the next chapter.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer? And why historical fiction?

I cannot remember a time when I did not write; my first “story” at age 6 was about a horse named Queenie. In my teens, I even wrote two novels, both of which have mercifully disappeared from the face of the earth. I never expected to make a living as a writer, though; when we hear of starving artists in their garrets, they usually have writers as roommates. I stumbled onto the story of Richard III by chance, and soon realized I wanted to write about him. After spending 12 years with Richard—mainly because the only copy of the manuscript was stolen after I’d been working on it for over 4 years—I knew I’d found my muse: the medieval world. Only once have I considered straying; for a time I thought about writing a novel set during the American Revolution, an idea I reluctantly abandoned once I realized I’d need 9 lives like a cat to do all the research required.

What authors inspire you?

Christy Brown comes to mind, the Irish writer and poet who suffered from a severe case of cerebral palsy and learned to write and draw with his only non-paralyzed limb, his left foot. His autobiography by that name and subsequent Down all the Days made him a literary sensation. Another writer I admire is Christine de Pisan, a 14th century Venetian-born woman who used her pen to support her children and family when she was widowed at age 25; she is considered to be Europe’s first woman to write professionally. And then there is a playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon named Shakespeare—even if he did engage in character assassination in a play named after the last Yorkist king, Richard III!

What book would you like to read again for the first time?

What a fascinating question—the first time ever that I’ve been asked it. My two all-time favorite books are Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I know, the Odd Couple, for they are totally unlike, aside from being extraordinarily well written. So I guess I’d choose them for the pleasure of discovering their riches all over again.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Never to forget that writing is subjective and no matter how brilliant a novel, short story, poem is, there will be people who do not appreciate its genius. Just as medieval knights needed armor to survive, writers need to be able to accept criticism and somehow not to take it personally. Otherwise the inevitable rejections that we all experience can be devastating rather than discouraging, and the editing process itself can be painful. I personally feel that there is not a writer, living or dead, who could not benefit from good editing. We are too close to our own work sometimes, need to have another perspective; of course, I am blessed to have had the same wonderful editor for thirty years!

For more information, please visit Sharon Kay Penman's WEBSITE and BLOG.

About the book...

SYNOPSIS

From the New York Times-bestselling novelist, a stunning story of a great medieval warrior-king, the accomplished and controversial son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Richard, Coeur de Lion.

They were called "The Devil's Brood," though never to their faces. They were the four surviving sons of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine. With two such extraordinary parents, much was expected of them.

But the eldest-charming yet mercurial-would turn on his father and, like his brother Geoffrey, meet an early death. When Henry died, Richard would take the throne and, almost immediately, set off for the Holy Land. This was the Third Crusade, and it would be characterized by internecine warfare among the Christians and extraordinary campaigns against the Saracens. And, back in England, by the conniving of Richard's youngest brother, John, to steal his crown.

In Lionheart, Sharon Kay Penman displays her remarkable mastery of historical detail and her acute understanding of human foibles. The result is a powerful story of intrigue, war, and- surprisingly-effective diplomacy, played out against the roiling conflicts of love and loyalty, passion and treachery, all set against the rich textures of the Holy Land.

Giveaway Information...

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US and Canada ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on October 11th.

Good luck to all!

the winners of Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick are...

2011-10-01T16:34:00.000-04:00

More giveaway winners to announce! The two winners of Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick are:

Rebecca May of Weird Village

Rae of The Silence in the Library

Congratulations to both winners, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Thanks to all who entered and helped spread the word and also to Sourcebooks for sponsoring the giveaway.

I've got giveaway winners!

2011-09-29T19:43:00.001-04:00

Hey all, it's time to announce the lucky winners of my most recent giveaways...

The winner of To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn by Sandra Byrd is...

Lori Thomas

The winner of To Be Queen by Christy English is...

Anne R

The winner of Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper is...

Leigh Ann

The winner of O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell is...

SidheKist

The winner of The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy is...

The Flashlight Reader

The winner of Mary & Elizabeth by Emily Purdy (aka Brandy Purdy) is...

Soft Fuzzy Sweater

Congratulations to all of the winners! Emails have been sent and I hope you all enjoy your goodies!

Thanks to all who entered and helped spread the word!

Passages to the Past is going on hiatus

2011-09-22T19:00:00.000-04:00

To the lovely followers of Passages to the Past,

I wanted to let you know that I will be going on hiatus from blogging and reviewing for a little while. My husband and I have unfortunately suffered another set back in our endeavor to expand the family and with this being the second loss this year (and our third overall), I am just needing to take a break. You may see a guest post or giveaway occasionally because I want to try and keep as many of my commitments as possible, but I won't be posting reviews.

You won't be able to miss me too much though because I am still hard at work on my tours at HF Virtual Book Tours. I can't tell you how much I enjoy working on the tours and how they have helped me keep my mind occupied over these past few weeks as we were awaiting an answer.

I want to apologize for any inconvenience I am causing the authors and publicists I have committed to, I just really need to take time for myself, to heal both emotionally and physically.

Thank you all and I'll be seeing you around.

Take care.

Bookshelf Cleaning Giveaway #2

2011-09-12T20:05:00.002-04:00

Welcome to another Bookshelf Cleaning Giveaway at Passages to the Past! My bookshelves are threatening to explode and I need to find new homes for a few of my books and I'm counting on you, my lovely readers, to adopt them!

Up for grabs this time is a duo of Shakespeare-inspired books...O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell and Mistress Shakespeare by Karen Harper. The giveaway is for one copy per winner, so when you sign up please let me know which copy you are interested in - you can choose both if you wish.

O, Juliet

by Robin Maxwell

Publication Date: February 2, 2010

SYNOPSIS

"One of the queens of historical fiction" offers a new take on the mesmerizing young woman and poetess who inspired Shakespeare's most famous female character.

Before Juliet Capelletti lie two futures: a traditionally loveless marriage to her father's business partner, or the fulfillment of her poetic dreams, inspired by the great Dante. Unlike her beloved friend Lucrezia, who looks forward to her arranged marriage, Juliet has a wild, romantic imagination that knows not the bounds of her great family's stalwart keep.

The latter path is hers for the taking when Juliet meets Romeo Monticecco, a soulful young man seeking peace between their warring families. A dreamer himself, Romeo is unstoppable, once he determines to capture the heart of the remarkable woman foretold in his stars. The breathless intrigue that ensues is the stuff of beloved legend. But those familiar with Shakespeare's muse know only half the story...

Mistress Shakespeare

by Karen Harper

Publication Date: January 5, 2010

SYNOPSIS

A bold and intriguing novel about the woman who was William Shakespeare's secret wife, by the national bestselling author.

As historical records show, Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton was betrothed to William Shakespeare just days before he was forced to wed the pregnant Anne Hathaway. Here, Anne Whateley takes up her pen to tell the intimate story of her daring life with Will. Obliged to acknowledge Will's publicly sanctioned marriage, Anne Whateley nevertheless follows him from rural Stratford-Upon-Avon to teeming London, where they honor their secret union, the coming together of two passionate souls. Persecution and plague, insurrection and inferno, friends and foes all play parts in Anne's lively tale.

Spanning half a century of Elizabethan and Jacobean history, and sweeping from the lowest reaches of society to the royal court, this richly textured novel tells the real story of Shakespeare in love.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

- To enter, please leave a comment below letting me know which copy you would like to receive and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on September 24th.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

Mailbox Monday

2011-09-11T09:17:00.000-04:00

Another Monday, Another Mailbox!! Mailbox Monday is a feature where we gush about the yummy new books that now grace our bookshelves! WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to extreme envy and GINORMOUS wishlists!!

Mailbox Monday was originally hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page and is now a traveling meme. For the month of August your new host is Amused By Books.

Hello, dear readers! I have two new additions to report, one was a book that I picked up used from Amazon and the other was an unsolicited review copy that was sent to me. I may try to get to it eventually, but with the state of my current TBR pile I can't say when that may be! I just wish my bank account was as full as my book shelves!

The Reluctant Empress

by Brigette Hamann

Publication Date: December 1, 2000

DESCRIPTION

A biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

Dangerous to Know (Lady Emily #5)

by Tasha Alexander

Publication Date: September 27, 2011

SYNOPSIS

Set in the lush countryside of Normandy, France, this new novel of suspense featuring Lady Emily Hargreaves is filled with intrigue, romance, mysterious deaths, and madness.

Returning from her honeymoon with Colin Hargreaves and a near brush with death in Constantinople, Lady Emily convalesces at her mother-in-law’s beautiful estate in Normandy. But the calm she so desperately seeks is shattered when, out riding a horse, she comes upon the body of a young woman who has been brutally murdered. The girl’s wounds are identical to those inflicted on the victims of Jack the Ripper, who has wreaked havoc across the channel in London. Emily feels a connection to the young woman and is determined to bring the killer to justice.

Pursuing a trail of clues and victims to the beautiful medieval city of Rouen and a crumbling château in the country, Emily begins to worry about her own sanity: She hears the cries of a little girl she cannot find and discovers blue ribbons left in the child’s wake. As Emily is forced to match wits with a brilliant and manipulative killer, only her courage, keen instincts, and formidable will to win can help her escape becoming his next victim.

That's my mailbox...what goodies did you receive?

Guest Post by Elizabeth Chadwick + 2 Copy Giveaway of Lady of the English

2011-09-09T06:22:00.000-04:00

I am so very, very exited to welcome one of my most favorite authors, Elizabeth Chadwick, to Passages to the Past today! Elizabeth is here in honor of the release of her latest and greatest, Lady of the English, which I reviewed yesterday {READ}.

I have long been fascinated by Elizabeth's use of Akashic Records and so I asked her if she could tell us all a bit about and how it enhances her novels. And thanks to Sourcebooks, Passages to the Past has 2 copies of Lady of the English to give away to my lovely readers!

The floor is yours, Elizabeth...

Thank you to Amy for inviting me onto Passages to the Past to talk about the Akashic Records and how I use them to research my novels.

My friend Alison King has the ability to access the past by tuning into the energy patterns of people and places that have gone before. She refers to her skill as being able to read the Akashic Records. I guess my handle on it would be psychic time travel. It would take up the entire blog post to try and explain the technicalities of it, and besides, it’s a bit like driving a car. I may be able to get from A to B in it, but don’t ask me to explain what’s under the hood! However, Alison does have her own websiteand if you want to know more about it, you can go to this url http://www.akashic-consultant.com/my-work-with-elizabeth-chadwick And this is Alison’s home page. http://www.akashic-consultant.com/ She is involved in various kinds of energy work as her day job.

For the purpose of this blog, let’s take it that Alison is indeed tuning in to the past in a fascinating and unique way. I don’t expect everyone to believe in this, your mileage may vary, but I what I doing here, is telling you how it works for me and how I use it in my historical novels.

I have been using Alison’s ability ever since the later stages of writing THE GREATEST KNIGHT, and have factored it into my research process ever since. I never use The Akashic Records exclusively. They are part of a broad spectrum of research materials involving primary source, secondary source, location visits and re-enactment. I add a good seasoning of imagination to the blend, and weave everything together to craft my story. I find the Akashic Records very useful for finding out the things that history doesn’t tell us and also for examining people’s thoughts, feelings and emotions about a given set of circumstances. Because Alison can tune in to each individual, I can get a fully rounded view of an incident and not just one side. In that way it is even better than primary source. It skips the bias of the chroniclers. Even if the winners write the history as is so often said, I can also listen in to the losers and the bystanders. For example, when working on Lady of the English I had to write about how Empress Matilda felt about her adolescent husband Geoffrey of Anjou. I was able to look at Matilda’s thoughts and feelings on the matter, and then at Geoffrey’s. I was also able to look at what those around them thought and felt about it. When the child, the future Henry II arrived on the scene, I was able to explore his childhood through his own thoughts and feelings and through the observances and emotions of his parents and a wider audience.

Where the historical events were already known, I tested the Akashic input against them for veracity. Where they weren’t already known, I asked myself ‘Is this probable or likely?’ It always was. I also sent each session for comment to a friend who is a medievalist and cultural historian specializing in this period, and her feedback was very positive on the cultural and social aspects. It was medieval mindset coming through and gave additional insights on the known history.

Since Alison receives every sense when she tunes in, she sees the people too, and this is fascinating for me. It’s almost like those programmes where experts do a facial reconstruction on the skull and the real person emerges from the mists of time to look you in the eyes.

Here are a few scenes taken from my Akashic Record research material while researching LADY OF THE ENGLISH. In total we accumulated around 120,000 words of research for this novel alone, so the below feature just a few meager snapshots from a huge kaleidoscope.

I am writing now writing 3 novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Akashic results from my research so far are proving a real eye opener. I am hoping to share them online very soon.

A description of Adeliza of Louvain.

She’s got a very wide mouth, quite thin lips. It’s not a straight mouth, it’s a wavy mouth. She’s got fine, straight hair. Very long, very drawn back from the face. She’s like a fairy tale princess. The sort of girl who in our day would go to ballet classes. She makes very fine movements with her hands – the sort of movements that always look as if a bird is about to alight on the back of the hand. Everything graceful and very flowing in straight lines – the clothes, the sleeves of the dress. Not a voluptuous figure at all, but very straight and slim. She’s not short, quite a normal sort of height, but gives the impression of delicacy.

Description of Will D’Albini, Adeliza’s second husband.

He has dark brown, thick, curly hair that grows vigorously. Strong features, rather Eastern European in look - wide face, high cheekbones, full lips, that sort of thing. Strong shoulders that make the cloak sway when he walks. (For those who want to Google, he has a bit of a look of the British actor the late Alan Bates).

How Brian FitzCount feels about the Empress Matilda.

Alison makes a small sound. He has to look the other way actually. Because he likes her? Yes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he doesn’t trust himself – but oh gosh, it’s terrible actually. If he got attached to her, it would be like falling down a huge mountain in darkness and he couldn’t do it to himself. So he has to keep it very light and very official. It is the loyal servant very much in love with the mistress. But this loyal servant is also extremely intelligent and also self aware and aware of his position and feelings and situation. He has real dignity. He’s a gorgeous man!

Description of the teenage Geoffrey of Anjou and a paragraph about his attitude to Matilda.

He is rather handsome and he likes posing and inspecting. He has wavy red-gold hair, quite thick lips nicely shaped. Plumpish soft cheeks. Very attractive in a cherubic sort of way. The eyes are not cherubic at all. They’re a greenish colour but they flash! And when they flash, they flash blue in the depths of the green. Very glassy, but sea-type colours.

So what does he think Matilda’s going to think of him?

Well it doesn’t really come into it does it?

But does he think that he’s so handsome that she won’t be able to resist him?

No, it’s more like ‘She’ll have to do what she’s told. She’s a woman. She has no feelings, she has no thoughts, she has no rights to anything really, apart from procreation. The real power lies with him and his father. That’s how he feels about it. She can just keep to her chamber. And when he says this it’s the same sort of feeling as keeping the pigs in the sties or the dogs in the kennel. There’s a place for women. He thinks that it won’t make that much difference to him in his life. All it requires is for him just to go at it and get her pregnant in crude terms.

Now go to Matilda before 1128 after she receives the letter of Hildebert de Lavardin, Archbishop of Tours, remonstrating with her for rejecting the betrothal between herself and Geoffrey of Anjou:

Alison: How could he? How could he? He doesn’t know what it’s like, he’s not a woman. How am I supposed to bear this? Married to a boy half my age and an idiot at that! He’d have to be an idiot to agree to this marriage. Anyone with any reasons knows it must be stupid! And then she cries. And she says ‘Everyone’s against me. Everyone’s turned against me. I have no one to turn to.’ She’s thinking about her first, dear husband and wishing he was still alive and that he could protect her. ‘Now I have no one. I will have to protect myself, but I can’t do it.’ She’s turning over, curling up in a ball and thinking ‘How can he ask me to do such a thing? It’s against all the rules of nature. She’s got nowhere to turn. There’s only God left, and what has God ever done for her? She’s reminded that she survived that time in childbirth, but she’s also reminded that she hasn’t got a baby. If she had, she would have had a purpose and a place. Now she’s trying to think her way out of it. Maybe God will protect her, but she thinks that God has taken the principal side. She doesn’t think that it’s bad to have politics but she thinks they should be tempered by moderation and humanity for those concerned so that everyone can live at peace and not just always be about gain. Sometimes things go beyond gain. But she wishes someone would value her as a person, as a human being. She doesn’t want any sanction by the church. She doesn’t hold with the opinions of this church any more and this proves it to her. She no more believes in so-called men of God. She feels very naughty saying that to herself and very out on a limb. It was her last resort and she’ll be damned if she’ll be a nun and be forever bound by men of God. That would be even worse than getting married. She’d be totally done for there. So she’s still trying to think of an alternative. And her father is the only alternative.

To petition him again?

I don’t know. She just feels that’s the only place she could make a difference. If he would only relent, but she’s tried and tried with that and he just turns away now and won’t even discuss it. She thinks he doesn’t understand how deep this goes with her and how painful it is. Because she always tries to be ladylike and professional when she’s with him, proud, but it doesn’t help. She cannot think of another alternative and she cannot think of herself without thinking of her position, so for example she can’t think of abdicating and just becoming an ordinary person. It seems to her the only honourable way forward is to go forward with this marriage and that is only honourable on the surface; it’s not honourable deep down, so she has to force herself. It’s a very subdued sort of state.

The Empress interacting with her son, the future Henry II when he’s a toddler.

I am seeing bottle shapes. They look like skittles and they are falling down. The child is crawling. It’s outdoors. They are on grass. The child is crawling towards the skittles. Matilda has told everyone to hold back a bit, not roll any more balls. She wants to see what he’ll do. He’s put one of the skittles back up on its base. He’s put a loop round it. It’s not skittles that you knock over but the sort you put a hoop over. It’s a flat hoop about an inch and a half wide. Alison laughs. Then he puts both arms in the air as if to say ‘Hooray, I’ve won!’ Aaah, Matilda is clapping him and saying ‘Well done, well done. Bravo! Bravo!’ He’s still holding a hoop while he’s in her arms and he’s waving it about and she’s praising him for being so clever. She is saying, ‘Here is the winner of the game, here is the winner! She’s holding him up higher as well. She is saying more quietly to him ‘That’s right, that’s how you win.’ Meaning? It doesn’t matter how you win, as long as you get the hoop over. She’s praising him because she wants a winner in the household. She feels a bit deficient in that area, so she’s trying to train her son to improve on her and she’s making sure that everyone in the court applauds him and acknowledges his win – so she is also training them. She is saying ‘Your father will come and explain some more things to you. Your father is a ferocious winner.’

Comment on the childhood personality of Henry II.

Henry has got a very winning smile and a very sunny side to him. He also has the attitude that he always has to win, and then the sun always shines. That’s the right thing.

On Henry II’s attitude to his mother going to England:

Has she told him at that point that she is leaving to go to England? Oh yes. It’s something that he accepts quite well. It’s family business. One day when he’s big enough he’ll be doing it. He’s been told that he must practice hard so he’ll be able to do it. He knows that’s his job now and he’s got responsibilities at home. And again there’s this feeling of responsibility, that he’s going to be in charge.

ABOUT LADY OF THE ENGLISH

SYNOPSIS

Matilda, daughter of Henry I, knows that there are those who will not accept her as England's queen when her father dies. But the men who support her rival Stephen do not know the iron will that drives her.

Adeliza, Henry's widowed queen and Matilda's stepmother, is now married to a warrior who fights to keep Matilda off the throne. But Adeliza, born with a strength that can sustain her through heartrending pain, knows that the crown belongs to a woman this time.

In the anarchy, in a world where a man's word is law, how can Adeliza obey her husband while supporting Matilda?

How long can Matilda fight for the throne that she has struggled so bitterly to win?

For more information, please visit Elizabeth Chadwick's WEBSITE.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US AND CANADA ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on September 21st.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

Review: Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick

2011-09-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

Lady of the English

by Elizabeth Chadwick

Publication Date: September 1, 2011

Sourcebooks Publishing

544p

SYNOPSIS

Matilda, daughter of Henry I, knows that there are those who will not accept her as England's queen when her father dies. But the men who support her rival Stephen do not know the iron will that drives her.

Adeliza, Henry's widowed queen and Matilda's stepmother, is now married to a warrior who fights to keep Matilda off the throne. But Adeliza, born with a strength that can sustain her through heartrending pain, knows that the crown belongs to a woman this time.

In the anarchy, in a world where a man's word is law, how can Adeliza obey her husband while supporting Matilda?

How long can Matilda fight for the throne that she has struggled so bitterly to win?

REVIEW

No one does medieval historical fiction quite like Elizabeth Chadwick, and her latest novel, Lady of the English is just one more example of her enormous talent for bringing the past to life!

Matilda has just returned to England after the death of husband, the German Emperor and is welcomed by her father, King Henry I and his wife, Adeliza. The two women become fast friends and a true companionship begins. Before King Henry’s death he makes his noblemen pledge their allegiance to his daughter Matilda as heir, but when the time comes they defy his wishes and her cousin Stephen assumes the throne. Matilda won’t back down without a fight and that’s exactly what she gives him. Factions soon form and the battle is on. Poor Adeliza is caught in the middle of the two sides as her new husband is fighting for Stephen. Adeliza knows that Matilda is the rightful ruler of England, but she loves her husband and wants to be loyal to both.

The characters of Matilda and Adeliza were portrayed wonderfully and Chadwick gives the reader such insight into each woman that when you finish the book you feel as if you’re saying goodbye to a friend. Chadwick’s impeccable research and knowledge of the medieval time period is, as always, very evident and her use of Akashic Records makes her novels that much more so and gives her that extra edge. I cannot recommend Elizabeth Chadwick novels enough, if you haven’t checked her out yet you are really missing out!

*Come back tomorrow for a guest post by the wonderful Elizabeth Chadwick and a giveaway of her fabulicious novel, Lady of the English!

For more information, please visit Elizabeth Chadwick's WEBSITE.

FTC DISCLOSURE: I received this book from the publisher in return for a fair and honest review.

Win a signed copy of The Tudor Throne by Brandy Purdy or Mary & Elizabeth by Emily Purdy!

2011-09-06T20:09:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the graciousness of author Brandy Purdy (or as she is known in the UK, Emily Purdy), Passages to the Past has one signed copy of The Tudor Throne (US edition) and one signed copy of Mary & Elizabeth (UK edition) available to give away! The only difference between the two editions are the title and cover art.

ABOUT THE TUDOR THRONE (US EDITION)

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.

ABOUT MARY & ELIZABETH (UK EDITION)

SYNOPSIS

Two Sisters, United by Blood, divided by the Crown.

They shared childhood memories and one grand ambition.Mary was England's precious jewel, the surviving child of the tumultuous relationship between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. However, when Henry fell passionately in love with the dark-eyed Anne Boleyn, he cast his wife and daughter aside.

Henry and Anne's union divides the country, and with the birth of Elizabeth, Mary becomes a pariah, stripped of all royal privileges. Yet, there is something enchanting about Elizabeth, and Mary soon grows to love her like a sister.

But every rose has its thorn, and following Anne Boleyn's execution, a rift begins to grow between the sisters. Mary assumes her place as queen, her reign of terror turning the people's love to hate. Elizabeth, whose true love is her country, must defy her tyrannical sister to make way for a new era...

Mary and Elizabeth is a rip-roaring story of a love, power, and rivalry that will delight fans of The Tudors.

For more information, please visit Brandy Purdy's WEBSITE.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US ONLY.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on September 16th.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

2012 Release: Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones

2011-09-06T08:42:00.000-04:00

Four Sisters, All Queens

by Sherry Jones

Release Date: May 8, 2012

SYNOPSIS

When Beatrice of Savoy, countess of Provence, sends her four beautiful, accomplished daughters to become queens, she admonishes them: Family comes first. As a result, the daughters—Marguerite, queen of France; Eleanor, queen of England; Sanchia, queen of Germany; and Beatrice, queen of Sicily—work not only to expand their husbands’ empires and broker peace between nations, but also to bring the House of Savoy to greater power and influence than before. Their father’s death, however, tears the sisters apart, pitting them against one another for the legacy each believes rightfully hers—Provence itself.Told from alternating points of view of all four queens, and set in the tumultuous thirteenth century, this is a tale of greed, lust, ambition, and sibling rivalry on a royal scale, exploring the meaning of true power and bringing to life four of the most celebrated women of their time—each of whom had an impact on the history of Europe.

2012 Release: A Light on the Veranda by Ciji Ware

2011-09-04T05:00:00.000-04:00

A Light on the Veranda

by Ciji Ware

Release Date: March 1, 2011

SYNOPSIS

A “stand-alone” sequel to Midnight on Julia Street, this novel tells the story of Daphne Duvallon, a wayward southern belle and Juilliard-trained harpist, who returns to Natchez, Mississippi from New York’s cut-throat classical music world, weary from professional battles and personal despair. Still wounded from the uproar that ricocheted through her family when she ditched Jack Ebert, her philandering groom, literally at the altar, she has an unexpected rendezvous with her future when she meets Simon Hopkins, a nationally-renown nature photographer with a dark secret of his own. Reinventing her life as a jazz musician while sorting through a series of bizarre collisions with her nineteenth century ancestors—and Simon’s as well—Daphne begins to get the feeling that she might well be better off making her way as a second-rate musician at society weddings than as a wildly successful woman band leader whose past is deeply rooted in the “Land that Time Forgot.”

2012 Release: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

2011-09-03T19:00:00.001-04:00

The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

Release Date: March 6, 2012

SYNOPSIS

A breathtakingly original rendering of the Trojan War - a devastating love story and a tale of gods and kings, immortal fame and the human heart.

Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles.Achilles, 'best of all the Greeks', is everything Patroclus is not - strong, beautiful, the child of a goddess - and by all rights their paths should never cross. Yet one day, Achilles takes the shamed prince under his wing and soon their tentative companionship gives way to a steadfast friendship.

As they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel and deathly pale sea goddess with a hatred of mortals. Fate is never far from the heels of Achilles. When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause.

Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Read a great interview with Madeline Miller over at Booktopia Blog.

Road from the West Virtual Book Tour starts tomorrow!

2011-09-01T08:26:00.001-04:00

Author Rosanne E. Lortz is on tour with HF Virtual Book Tours for the release of Road from the West (Chronicles of Tancred, #1) starting tomorrow! You can follow the tour fun from September 2nd - October 20th. There will be reviews, guest posts, interviews and giveaways, this is a tour you won't want to miss!

About Road from the West

Pub Date: 9/2/2011
Madison Street Publishing
360 pages

Haunted by guilt from the past and nightmares of the future, a young Norman named Tancred takes the cross and vows to be the first to free Jerusalem from the infidels. As he journeys to the Holy Land, he braves vast deserts, mortal famine, and the ever-present ambushes of the enemy Turks—but the greatest danger of all is deciding which of the Crusader lords to trust. A mysterious seer prophesies that Tancred will find great love and great sorrow on his journey, but the second seems intent on claiming him before he can find the first. Intrigues and passions grow as every battle brings the Crusaders one step closer to Jerusalem. Not all are destined to survive the perilous road from the West.

Read an excerpt here.

About Rosanne E. Lortz

"Rose" is a medieval enthusiast, a history teacher, a book addict, a mom to two baby boys, and a native of Portland, Oregon. She graduated from New St. Andrews College. in 2005 with a B. A. in Liberal Arts and Culture and worked as a high school teacher for several years teaching classes in English, history, literature, and music. She married David Spears in December of 2009 and they were blessed with twin boys, Adam and Oliver, in November of 2010.

For more information please visit Rosanne Lortz's website.

Road from the West Tour Schedule

Friday, September 2nd

Review at The Maiden's Court

Monday, September 5th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at The Maiden's Court

Tuesday, September 6th

Review at Debbie's Book Bag

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at From the TBR Pile

Wednesday, September 7th

Review at The Calico Critic

Thursday, September 8th

Review at Unabridged Chick

Review at A Journey Into Reading

Friday, September 9th

Author Guest Post at A Journey Into Reading

Monday, September 12th

Review at Broken Teepee

Tuesday, September 13th

Review at Reviews by Molly

Author Interview & Giveaway at Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, September 14th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Thursday, September 15th

Author Interview at Reviews by Molly

Friday, September 16th

Review at Diary of a Book Addict

Tuesday, September 20th

Review at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Wednesday, September 21st

Review & Giveaway at A Bookish Affair

Thursday, September 22nd

Author Guest Post at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Monday, September 26th

Review at Just One More Paragraph

Tuesday, September 27th

Review at The Musings of a Book Junkie

Wednesday, September 28th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Just One More Paragraph

Thursday, September 29th

Review at Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews

Friday, September 30th

Review at By the By Books

Monday, October 3rd

Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, October 4th

Author Interview at The Musings of a Book Junkie

Wednesday, October 5th

Review & Giveaway at Bippity Boppity Book

Thursday, October 6th

Review at A Few More Pages

Friday, October 7th

Review at The Owl Bookmark Blog

Monday, October 10th

Review at Historically Obsessed

Tuesday, October 11th

Author Interview & Giveaway at The Owl Bookmark Blog

Wednesday, October 12th

Review at Between the Pages

Thursday, October 13th

Review at Words and Peace

Monday, October 17th

Review at Erin Reads

Wednesday, October 19th

Review at The True Book Addict

Thursday, October 20th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at The True Book Addict

giveaway winners!

2011-08-31T19:58:00.001-04:00

It's time to make some readers happy squeal with joy! Here are the latest giveaway winners...

The winner of In A Treacherous Court by Michelle Diener is...

Lady Bren!

The winner of Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter is...

Na!

Congratulations to both winners, emails have been sent your way! Thanks to everyone who entered and helped spread the word!

September HF & NF Releases

2011-08-30T22:01:00.000-04:00

September is looking like a great month for releases!

Here is what is coming out in the US and UK for historical fiction and history/non-fiction...

US Releases

September 1: Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick
September 1: The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
September 1: The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories by Michel Faber
September 13: Sunrise of Avalon: A Novel of Trystan & Isolde by Anna Elliot
September 13: The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen and the King's Mother (NF) by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin & Michael Jones
September 16: Weight of a Flame: The Passion of Olympia Morata by Simonetta Carr
September 22: Mary I: England's Catholic Queen (The English Monarchs Series) by John Edwards
September 27: The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife by Carolly Erickson September 27: The Countess: A Novel of Elizabeth Bathory by Rebecca Johns

UK Releases

September 1: The Elizabethans by A.N. Wilson

September 8: Cavalier Queen by Fiona Mountain

September 15: The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory

September 29: The House by the Fjord by Rosalind Laker

September 29: Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn

September 29: Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

September 29: The Queen and the Courtesan by Freda Lightfoot

Win a copy of To Be Queen by Christy English

2011-08-30T08:13:00.000-04:00

Passages to the Past has an extra copy of To Be Queen: A Novel of the Early Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine by the loverly Christy English and I'd like to pass on the love to one of you fabulous readers!

SYNOPSIS

With captivating and lyrical prose, the author of The Queen's Pawn delves into the early life of the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine...

Duchess at fifteen, Eleanor of Aquitaine marries the King of France. But will she find that she must pay too high a price to be queen?

Although Louis VII is enamored of his bride, the newly crowned king is easily manipulated by forces in the Church. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Eleanor fights for her freedom and for the love of her life. In the arms of Henry of Normandy, Eleanor may finally find the passion she longs for, and the means to fulfill her legacy as Queen.

Giveaway Information...

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address (only comments with email addresses will be entered in the giveaway).

- Giveaway is open to US only.

- For +5 additional entries become a follower of Passages to the Past. If you are already a follower you will automatically receive the bonus entries.

- For +3 additional entries join the Passages to the Past FB Page.

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting this giveaway on Facebook. You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on September 9th.

Good luck to all!