Forthcoming Books: 2013 edition

[Berengaria]

Originally Posted by Divia

We are all gonna be gone by 2012 anyway.

Well, yeah, it's my birthday the day before, so I'll be able to party right up to Doomsday!

[Tanzanite]

Shadow of the Wolf by Tim Hall. UK release February 7, 2013.

So many tales have already been told of Robin Hood. Already he's the hero with a thousand faces. First, forget everything you've heard. Robin was no prince, and he was no dispossessed lord; he didn't fight in the Crusades; he never gave a penny to the poor.

His real name wasn't even Robin Hood. Marian called him that as a kind of joke. Sir Robin of the Hood. A name Robin would cling to when he was losing grip of everything else. Mind you, one thing you've heard is true. He was blind.

No, that's not right. Let me put that another way. Truer to say, Robin Hood didn't see with his eyes. In fact he was the only one who saw clearly in this place of illusion and lies.

The first book of the trilogy, Shadow of the Wolf, is set in Sherwood Forest in medieval England. In it, Tim Hall presents a Robin Hood more heroic and horrific than ever before: a fourteen-year-old, blind, ruthless assassin and elemental creature of the forest, hell-bent on a mission to avenge his father's death and the brutal abduction of his soul mate Marian. It is a breathtakingly original - and utterly compelling - retelling of the Robin Hood legend.

[DanielAWillis]

Originally Posted by Berengaria

Well, yeah, it's my birthday the day before, so I'll be able to party right up to Doomsday!

I'll be partying rigth along with you (but from a distance). I am going to be at the Mayan temple at appointed hour on 21 Dec. It's part of a "not the end of the world" cruise I am taking.

[Vanessa]

Shadow the Wolf looks a little creepy!

[EC2]

'Breathtakingly original' and 'utterly compelling' is ye usual publisher puff speak and means nothing. I shall reserve judgement. Not saying this in a nasty way, but in a 'seen it all before and we shall see' sort of way. Might be interesting. Robin Hood rather lends himself to reinvention.

[Tanzanite]

The Chalice by Nancy Bilyeau. UK release February 7, 2013.

For Joanna Stafford, life will never be the same again. She once thought she would find meaning and purpose as a nun at Dartford Priory - but across England, the monasteries and priories' days are numbered, and that way of life is reaching an end. And for Joanna, having been entangled with the royal court and caught up in its deadly power-plots, her life now looks very different. But the quiet life is not for Joanna. Soon she risks arrest and imprisonment again, when she is drawn into a conspiracy of aristocrats seeking to overturn Henry VIII.

After the suspects are thrown into the Tower of London and Joanna's desperate attempt to protect the corpse of Saint Thomas Becket fails, she must make a choice between those she cares for most and taking her place in a prophecy foretold by three different seers, each more powerful than the last. At first Joanna chooses peace, with a man who loves her. But yet another shattering edict from Henry VIII destroys her chance at happiness. To learn the final, sinister piece of the prophecy, she flees across Europe with an amoral spy sent by Spain. Should Joanna agree, the life of Henry VIII as well as the future of Christendom are in her hands, hands which must someday hold...the chalice.

[SonjaMarie]

Even though I wasn't impressed with her historical in accuracies that I hear are in "Three Maids For A Crown" Ella March Chase is coming out with another book on the subject:
"The Reluctant Queen: The story of Lady Jane Grey's nine-day rule", out in the UK (so far) Feb 14, 2013:

No cover so far.

SM

[boswellbaxter]

Originally Posted by SonjaMarie

Even though I wasn't impressed with her historical in accuracies that I hear are in "Three Maids For A Crown" Ella March Chase is coming out with another book on the subject:
"The Reluctant Queen: The story of Lady Jane Grey's nine-day rule", out in the UK (so far) Feb 14, 2013:

No cover so far.

SM

The description says, "An astonishingly vivid re-telling of the life of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey and her sisters." I wonder if it's a reissue of her novel about the Grey sisters under a new title?

BTW, PM me with your address if you want me to send you a copy of my book.

[Tanzanite]

Becoming Valley Forge by Sheilah Vance. US release January 7, 2013.


This epic historical novel shows how the lives of ordinary men and women who lived in the shadow of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, were changed forever beginning in early 1777, when the Revolutionary War battles came to their doorsteps, leading them and their loved ones to Valley Forge from winter 1777 through summer 1778.


James, a former slave, lives as a blacksmith on Rebel Hill, with his patriot friend, Fred. Both are reluctant to volunteer for the army because they need their wages. But ten days later, they join the march to Valley Forge. An outraged farmer s daughter. Becky, builds a network of women from the local area and the colonies to support the troops after both brothers enlist and fight in the Battle of Paoli. Her sister, Sue, who runs a brothel in Philadelphia that services many British officers during their occupation of the city, becomes a patriot spy. Their paths converge at Valley Forge, where General George Washington s Continental Army, a young nation, and the fascinating characters in the book are forced to grow and become what we mean when we say Valley Forge.

[Tanzanite]

Rebranding Rule: The Restoration and Revolution Monarchy 1660-1714 by Kevin Sharpe. Non-fiction. US and UK release January 8, 2013.


In the climactic part of his three-book series exploring the importance of public image in the Tudor and Stuart monarchies, Kevin Sharpe employs a remarkable interdisciplinary approach that draws on literary studies and art history as well as political, cultural, and social history to show how this preoccupation with public representation met the challenge of dealing with the aftermath of Cromwell's interregnum and Charles II's restoration, and how the irrevocably changed cultural landscape was navigated by the sometimes astute yet equally fallible Stuart monarchs and their successors.