Forthcoming Books: 2013 edition

[Lisa]

[quote=""SonjaMarie""] I wonder if she was relieved when she was murdered.[/quote]

It shouldn't have, but that just made me almost spray tea all over my monitor.

Poor lady though, but at least through her status she is immortalised in people's thoughts and imaginations.

[Tanzanite]

[quote=""SonjaMarie""]Shouldn't this be in a new thread for Forthcoming Books in 2014?

SM[/quote]

oops

I think there is a thread for 2014 so maybe one of the mods can move it.

[SonjaMarie]

[quote=""Tanzanite""]oops

I think there is a thread for 2014 so maybe one of the mods can move it.[/quote]

Done

SM

[Madeleine]

Wolves in Winter by Lisa Hill - currently out in trade pb in the UK, and about Caterina Sforza. I was reading a review of it yesterday in a Sunday supplement, and was intrigued. Apparently when Caterina's children were taken hostage and threatened with execution when her stronghold was under siege, she took a leaf out of John Marshal's book and declared she could make more children; however, she also lifted her skirts (so I read) at the same time she said this!

[emr]

I can't find this one here so there it goes

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley Expected publication: January 28th 2013 Woot!

Whoever dares to seek the Firebird may find the journey — and its ending — unexpected.

Nicola Marter was born with a gift. When she touches an object, she sometimes sees images; glimpses of those who have owned it before. It’s never been a gift she wants, and she keeps it a secret from most people, including her practical boss Sebastian, one of London’s premier dealers in Russian art.

But when a woman offers Sebastian a small wooden carving for sale, claiming it belonged to Russia’s first Empress Catherine, it’s a problem. There’s no proof. Sebastian believes that the plain carving — known as “The Firebird” — is worthless. But Nicola’s held it, and she knows the woman is telling the truth, and is in desperate need of the money the sale of the heirloom could bring.

Compelled to help, Nicola turns to a man she once left, and still loves: Rob McMorran, whose own psychic gifts are far greater than hers. With Rob to help her “see” the past, she follows a young girl named Anna from Scotland to Belgium and on into Russia.

There, in St. Petersburg — the once-glittering capital of Peter the Great’s Russia — Nicola and Rob unearth a tale of love and sacrifice, of courage and redemption…an old story that seems personal and small, perhaps, against the greater backdrops of the Jacobite and Russian courts, but one that will forever change their lives.

[Vanessa]

Like the sound of that one, Emr!

[Tanzanite]

Beauty’s Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy by Carolyn Meyer. Young Adult. US and UK release October 8, 2013.

Spartan Princess Hermione's mother Helen is known as the most beautiful woman in the ancient world. When Helen runs off to Troy with handsome young Prince Paris, Hermione's father, King Menelaus, finds erupts in fury. He amasses a thousand ships and sails for Troy, determined to reclaim Helen. This is the beginning of the Trojan War. For the next ten years, young Hermione lives outside the walls of Troy and is a witness to the battles that result in the death of heroes on both sides. Can she ever forgive her mother for creating such chaos? And will Hermione find her own love and her own place in the world?

[Tanzanite]

Royal Inheritance by Kate Emerson. US and UK release September 24, 2013.

This new novel in the Secrets of the Tudor Court series, features a tailor’s daughter who suspects she is an illegitimate offspring of King Henry VIII.

Audrey Malte, born about 1528 and raised at court by the king’s tailor, John Malte, was led to believe she is Malte’s illegitimate daughter when, in fact, her father is King Henry VIII. When she reaches marriageable age, she beings to realize, from the way certain people behave toward her, that Malte is keeping secrets from her and she sets out to discover the truth. Her quest involves the best and worst of the courtiers, among them a man with whom she falls in love.

Unfortunately, Malte has already entered into negotiations for her betrothal to someone else, and Audrey guesses the truth about her legacy when the king settles property on her, jointly with Malte. Marriage is definitely in Audrey’s future, but will it be to the man she wants to wed?

A wonderfully absorbing novel that is full of enough historical detail to satisfy even the most hard-core Tudor fan. Emerson beautifully depicts the difficulty of living in a treacherous period in which one had to do what the king’s pleasure demanded, in spite of the risk of losing one’s head.

[Tanzanite]

Henry VIII by H.M. Castor. Young Adult. US release August 20, 2013 (was released in the UK in 2011).

Destined for greatness...tormented by demons. The epic story of Henry VIII’s transformation from a handsome, gifted youth to a murderous, cruel king.

Hal is a young man of extraordinary talents, astonishing warrior skills, sharp intelligence, and a fierce sense of honor and virtue. He believes he is destined for greatness. His father wishes he would disappear. Haunted by the ghosts of his family’s violent past, Hal embarks on a journey that leads him to absolute power—and brings him face to face with his demons.

[Tanzanite]

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset. Non-fiction. US release July 2, 2013.

She ascended the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1702, at age thirty-seven, and five years later united two of her realms, England and Scotland, as a sovereign state, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain. By the end of her comparatively short twelve-year reign, Britain had emerged as a great power-the succession of outstanding victories won by her general, John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough-had humbled France, and laid the foundations for Britain's future naval and colonial supremacy.

While the Queen's military was performing dazzling exploits on the continent, her own attention-indeed her realm-rested on a more intimate conflict: the female friendship, on which her happiness had for decades depended and which became for her a source of utter torment.

At the core of Anne Somerset's fascinating new biography, just published to acclaim in England ("Formidable"-Sunday Times; "Wonderfully pacy and absorbing"-Daily Mail), is a portrait of this fraught, complex bond between two very different women: Queen Anne, reserved, stolid, shrewd; and Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the Queen's great general-beautiful, willful, outspoken, whose acerbic wit was equally matched by her fearsome temper.

The book tells the extraordinary drama of how Sarah goaded and provoked the Queen beyond endurance, and, after the withdrawal of Anne's favor, how her replacement, Sarah's cousin, the feline Abigail Masham, another lady-in-waiting, became the ubiquitous royal confidante and, Sarah publicly claimed to great scandal, the object of the Queen's sexual infatuation.