Synopsis:

From the author People called “a must-read for Philippa Gregory fans,” a “terrifically entertaining” (The Sunday Times, London) novel about two sisters who must survive life in the Tudor court after the execution of their sister Lady Jane Grey who was queen for just nine days.

Early in Mary Tudor’s turbulent reign, Lady Catherine and Lady Mary Grey are reeling after the brutal death of their elder seventeen-year-old sister, and the succession is by no means stable. In Sisters of Treason, Elizabeth Fremantle brings these young women and their perilous times to vivid life.

Neither sister is well suited to a dangerous career at court. Flirtatious Lady Catherine, thought to be the true heir, cannot control her compulsion to love and be loved. Her sister, clever Lady Mary, has a crooked spine and a tiny stature in an age when physical perfection equates to goodness—and both girls have inherited the Tudor blood that is more curse than blessing. For either girl to marry without royal permission would be a potentially fatal political act. It is the royal portrait painter, Levina Teerlinc, who helps the girls survive these troubled times. She becomes their mentor and confidante, but when the Queen’s sister, the hot-headed Elizabeth Tudor, inherits the crown, life at court becomes increasingly treacherous for the surviving Grey sisters. Ultimately each young woman must decide how far she will go to defy her Queen, risk her life, and find the safety and love she longs for.

Knowing that I have become a fan of Elizabeth Fremantle, the publisher has kindly offered my blog readers a chance to win a copy of Sisters of Treason which has just released in paperback via Simon & Schuster. I wanted to share with you also these quick questions that I asked Elizabeth regarding the second book of her Tudor trilogy.

While researching 'Sisters of Treason', was there anything truly intriguing that was not public or popular knowledge of the era?
For me the most fascinating thing is the story of the girls themselves, so close to the throne and yet few people except true Tudor enthusiasts have heard of them. Indeed even the facts of Lady Jane Grey’s short life remain widely unexplored and most don’t fully understand why she had a claim on the throne, let alone her forgotten younger sisters. It was for this reason I wanted to explore their lives in Sisters of Treason.
Catherine Grey’s deliberate self- starvation is a little known detail and deeply shocking and Mary Grey’s disability has often been glossed over but I discovered, through a conversation with a historian who specializes in the period, that it is possible that her scoliosis was inherited from her ancestor Richard III, who we now know definitely had the condition. It is possible too that her cousin Edward VI was also a sufferer.

Considering the sisters' potential claim to the throne, how do you feel Katherine and Mary felt about their relation to the throne?
Given they had seen their sister go to the block aged only seventeen because of her royal blood it is likely that they felt a great deal of apprehension about their proximity to the throne. This is how I have depicted it in the novel. They are both so young when they find themselves at court (nine and fourteen) it is hard to imagine them as anything other than fearful. Certainly when you know how their lives panned out, their royal blood was more a curse than a blessing.

Why did you choose to tell the story from three different point of views, and what benefit did you find by using a lesser-known figure to help tell the story?
I wanted the two girls to tell their own stories and show how they developed as individuals growing up in such difficult circumstances. Each has a different perspective on the same events and I wanted to demonstrate that through their distinct voices. I felt it was important to have a reliable older voice to hold the narrative together and so I brought in Levina Teerlinc. As a female court painter she intrigued me and I felt her links to the Grey sisters made her the perfect person to tell their story. Her role of painter suggested to me that she would observe the world in a particular way, noticing things others don’t and I used this to help the reader see with her eyes.

In your portrayal of Queen Elizabeth, how close to the truth do you feel the portrayal is of her character?
For me it’s the truth, but of course Elizabeth in my novels is an entirely fictional character. I armed myself with as much knowledge as I could and from that extrapolated the person she was to become in my trilogy, which follows her from girlhood to her death. Everyone’s idea of a figure as well known as Elizabeth is subjective and it is impossible to arrive at a definitive truth about people, even those we feel we know well, from so long ago. So I suppose all we can hope for is a version of the truth.

Tell us more about your current works in progress and who of the Stuart era you plan to focus on.
Watch the Lady has just been published, so the trilogy is complete and I am now working on a novel about Arbella Stuart, another girl with Tudor blood that compromises her entire life. She was raised to be Elizabeth’s heir only to see the throne go to her male cousin. She is a fascinating figure and was a prolific letter writer so I have been able to really get beneath her skin for my narrative. The story has many links to that of the Grey sisters which make the two books work together as a piece. Following that I will move forward in time, keeping my focus on interesting women whilst telling the history of a period of great turmoil, from the Gunpowder Plot through the Civil War and the execution of Charles I, to the great fire and plague and the bawdiness of the Restoration.

Other links at Burton Book Review:
Interview with Fremantle for Watch The Lady release
Review of Watch The Lady, book 3 of the Tudor Trilogy
Review of Queen's Gambit, book 1 of the Tudor Trilogy

Please leave a comment on this blog post regarding what intrigues you about the story of Sisters of Treason.
Have you read other books with the Grey sisters? Have you read any other works of Elizabeth Fremantle's?

Please leave an email address so that I can contact the winner; you will have 48 hours to respond to my request for your mailing address.

If you are an Email Subscriber, please forward that email post to reviewer{@}BurtonBookReview.com and you will receive an extra two entries, please also comment here to tell me that you emailed me.

Good luck! Giveaway open to USA and ends July 6th, 2015.

From “a brilliant new player in the court of royal fiction” (People), comes the mesmerizing story of Lady Penelope Devereux—the daring young beauty in the Tudor court, who inspired Sir Philip Sidney’s famous sonnets even while she plotted against Queen Elizabeth.

Penelope Devereux arrives at Queen Elizabeth’s court where she and her brother, the Earl of Essex, are drawn into the aging Queen’s favor. Young and naïve, Penelope, though promised elsewhere, falls in love with Philip Sidney who pours his heartbreak into the now classic sonnet series Astrophil and Stella. But Penelope is soon married off to a man who loathes her. Never fainthearted, she chooses her moment and strikes a deal with her husband: after she gives birth to two sons, she will be free to live as she chooses, with whom she chooses. But she is to discover that the course of true love is never smooth.

Meanwhile Robert Cecil, ever loyal to Elizabeth, has his eye on Penelope and her brother. Although it seems the Earl of Essex can do no wrong in the eyes of the Queen, as his influence grows, so his enemies gather. Penelope must draw on all her political savvy to save her brother from his own ballooning ambition and Cecil’s trap, while daring to plan for an event it is treason even to think about.

Unfolding over the course of two decades and told from the perspectives of Penelope and her greatest enemy, the devious politician Cecil, Watch the Lady chronicles the last gasps of Elizabeth’s reign, and the deadly scramble for power in a dying dynasty.

Having very much enjoyed Elizabeth Fremantle's Queen's Gambit (my review here), I was excited to be able to offer my followers this chance to win Elizabeth Fremantle's newest work shown above, Watch The Lady.

I asked the author some questions to kick start the giveaway with:

Q: What drawbacks have you encountered now that you have fulfilled your childhood dream of becoming an author?

That’s an interesting question. I suppose that I now feel I have to improve with every book I publish. I want to challenge myself to write a better, more complex novel each time, building on the previous work and learning from my mistakes. I don’t want to be that author who wrote one good book and then wrote fundamentally the same book over and over again after it. I have high expectations of myself, which makes me anxious I won’t live up to them, so inevitably halfway through a first draft I have a crisis of confidence and feel that I’ll never make it work. I have learned through experience how to push through no matter what.

Q: As a younger self, what types of stories did you see yourself writing?

Funnily enough not historical ones. When I was very little I wanted to write about animals – the echoes of that live on in my novels which are full of dogs, horses, birds, even a pair of monkeys in Queen’s Gambit. I was always, and still am, interested in factual based narrative and never wanted to write about fantasy.

Q: What would you say sets yourself apart from other writers of the Tudor era, and what would you say to those readers who say they have no desire to read another Tudor novel!

I don’t read much other Tudor era fiction primarily because I want to keep my distinctive voice and not worry about whether other people are doing it better than I am. But I’d say my novels aim to be expansive and multi-focused. I also tend to focus on less-known figures from the period, so it’s unlikely I’d write a novel about Anne Boleyn as so many others have tackled her story. I’m more interested in the forgotten or misrepresented women, like Penelope Devereux or the younger Grey sisters. Q: What is one of the things that you remember as surprising you about Lady Penelope?

Penelope Devereux really was an extraordinary woman. I knew very little about her when I began my research, only that she’d been Sir Philip Sidney’s muse and that she was involved in some way in her brother’s insurrection. I was astonished to discover the extent to which she was making secret treasonous allegiances with a foreign power and also that she was much more deeply involved in the Essex plot than I’d previously thought.

Q: In your writing of WATCH THE LADY did you come across any characters that you felt you needed to give a more positive tone? Any character that you had trouble writing?

I thought Robert Cecil might be a challenge, as he seemed such a dry figure, but as it turned out he came to life on the page and became one of the main narrators of the story. Sometimes characters simply write themselves and he was one. Perhaps it was Lord Rich, Penelope’s husband, who I found difficult. there’s very little about him in the record and what there is makes him seem cowardly and unpleasant but I wanted to create him as a fully rounded character. He is an antagonist in Penelope’s story but I felt I needed it to be a complex relationship and not simply black and white.

Q: Which novel was the most fun to write, WATCH THE LADY or THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT?

Probably WATCH THE LADY; it was not an easy process but I had more confidence than I did when writing QUEEN’S GAMBIT and so it was a less tortuous process. QUEEN’S GAMBIT had to be rewritten from scratch at a late stage because the pacing simply didn’t work, which was excruciating. There are really pleasurable elements in the process of writing each novel; the moment a character takes shape, is one. For example when writing Katherine Grey in SISTERS OF TREASON her voice was so distinct to me that the writing flowed with ease and that is the most wonderful feeling as a writer.


What a pleasure to host Elizabeth Fremantle today on Burton Book Review! Courtesy of Simon and Schuster, we have one copy to give away to my USA readers.

Contest is over and winner has been mailed his book, edit to add the review for the title can be found here at Burtonbookreview.com

Q&A with Geraldine Brooks, author of CALEB’S CROSSING

The publisher has provided permission to The Burton Review to post the following interview with author Geraldine Brooks. Geraldine is the author of several prize winning novels, such as March, and Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague.

A richly imagined new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, People of the Book.


Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures.

Like Brooks's beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb's Crossing further establishes Brooks's place as one of our most acclaimed novelists. 

Eleanor of Aquitaine has been an intriguing historical figure as she was a Queen of France, and later a Queen of England who was famous for helping to maneuver her sons against her husband King Henry II. One of her famous sons was Richard the Lionheart, who is touted as her favorite. This year has been a fabulous year for novels on Eleanor and her famous family, and today, August 3rd, brings us the newest one titled The Secret Eleanor:

His Last Letter, available August 3, 2010

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel.


They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes.

His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

Please welcome author Jeane Westin to The Burton Review! Her previous Tudor novel The Virgin's Daughters came out last year and now I am reading His Last Letter where it portrays an entirely different point of view than I am used to reading regarding Elizabeth I. See below for the giveaway of the above pictured book, His Last Letter, by Jeane Westin.


Your bio states that you have been intrigued by historical fiction since you were a child. What do you think is the key to the continuing fascination that you have for the Tudor period?

Although my mother told me family history stories throughout my childhood, my fascination with historical fiction started when I was six years old and she took me to the library for the first time. Out of all the choices and shelves, I pulled The Little Cave Boy and Girl. The whole idea of it...another time and other people that I would never know must have called to me. I don't remember now, but I continued to read YA historical fiction until I was old enough to take out books from the adult shelves where I discovered Daphne du Maurier, Jean Plaidy and so many others.

I've continued to read and write in the Restoration and Tudor periods because there is so much we know and yet don't know...gaps that can only be filled by a novelist.

In your research, what are some of the things that you have come across that surprised you about Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley?

For one thing, their staying power. They knew each other for almost five decades and their mutual fascination really never waned, while fighting and loving and suffering the ups and downs of most long relationships. What that must have been like for both Elizabeth and her Robin is the basis for my novel His Last Letter.

What is your personal opinion on the death of Robert Dudley's first wife, Amy: accidental, suicide, or murder?

It's very hard for me to have a personal opinion. Although two inquiries exonerated him, many thought and still think Dudley guilty of having engineered Amy's accident. Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth 's councilor certainly did, just as he thought Elizabeth and Dudley were lovers even into 1572. Remembering that Dudley was Elizabeth 's favorite and therefore unpopular with others, their suspicions were not surprising.

It is likely that Amy had a breast tumor and modern medicine tells us that a metastasis could weaken bones so that a minor fall might well have broken her neck. She could have commited suicide, which is what I believe Dudley thought, though he protected her to insure her Christian burial.
The possibilities are many and it was so long ago there is no way of putting an end to the speculation.
Surely, Dudley was smart enough to know that if he were suspected, he could never marry Elizabeth , which was what he wanted more than anything.

So like most people, I go back and forth not able to make up my mind. If he were guilty, he paid a great price. He knew she was dying and so did Elizabeth . They were brilliant people. I have to believe they would not have taken such a risk.

But I'll never know.

One of my favorite Tudor historical figures is Lettice Knollys, and I loved how she was portrayed in Victoria Holt's My Enemy The Queen. What is your opinion of Lettice? Did you gather any fun details about her while researching for your novels?


In His Last Letter Lettice Knollys is a villainess. I apologize if I have wronged her, but Elizabeth did hate her. She was a Boleyn cousin and prettier than Elizabeth, a rival for Dudley and given to wearing gowns to court much finer than the queen thought suitable. Although Lettice was one of the queen's early ladies-in-waiting, I think it was an example of keeping your enemies closer than your friends. After Dudley, by then Earl of Leicester, married her, Elizabeth refused ever after to see Lettice or have her back to court. The queen got even (as only queens can) by nearly bankrupting Lettice after the Earl died, by calling in all his debts.
Lettice lived on into her 90's an almost unheard of age at the time and I suppose that was some revenge.

Why do you think that Elizabeth and Dudley never married?

Elizabeth would never share her rule, nor place herself under the power of a husband which at that time was supreme. She also needed to remain single to use herself as a bargaining chip in the wars for dominance between the continental powers. She brilliantly prolonged marriage negotiations with first one and then another until she had wrung all the benefit she could out of them. Even when suitors withdrew, they were never sure that they couldn't go back and try again, or that she wouldn't change her mind.

What has been your biggest challenge with your writing of historical fiction?

With Tudor fiction, Elizabeth herself has presented the biggest challenge. She was powerful, yet needed admiration...strong and active, yet sickly...refusing to marry, yet needing men to adore her. I've read an historical psychoanalysis of her behavior. Disturbed, domineering, fearful, brave and needy are only some of her personality traits.

In His Last Letter I've tried to show all of these through the prism of Elizabeth 's love for Dudley.

Over the past few years do you think that the market has been saturated with Tudor novels? What are the pros and cons to the continued popularity of the Tudor period?

Although popularity runs in cycles, Elizabeth and Henry VIII continue to fascinate and will for some time, Edward and Mary less so. (The English still vote her their favorite ruler.) Movies, theater dramas and books, both fiction and non-fiction appear regularly to feed this fascination without ever seeming to satisfy it completely. In the last three or four years, the internet has become a feeding ground for Tudor information and reviews. Recently I watched a program on the History Channel about Henry's medical problems, which made me wonder how he could have lived as long as he did, and partially explained why he became such a monster. Now who would think that such a program would interest without proof positive. We continue to speculate about this father and daughter because there are so many gaps in our knowledge and they are so real to us that we want to know more. As a novelist, I'm thankful for that.

What is next for you on the writing front?

I've already contracted for my next book, which is tentatively titled The Queen's Lady Spy. It is a thrilling story of Lady Frances Sidney, the ignored wife of England 's favorite love poet and the daughter of Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Brought to court when her husband is sent overseas, Lady Frances is eager to put her brilliant mind to good use. She becomes a secret intelligence and aids in foiling deadly plots against the Queen while working closely with her father's man Robert Pauley. A forbidden love blossoms between the married noble woman and the commoner all while Lady Frances is being pursued by the queen's handsome new favorite and notorious pleasure seeker, the Earl of Essex. The earl does not know Lady Frances is a secret intelligencer, but is determined to have her in his bed. But her own servant, Robert Pauley, secretly in love with her is determined that he will not.
Frances is a distant ancestress of mine and her interest in cryptography mirrors my own. I'm very much looking forward to writing this book Thanks for asking me to answer these interesting questions.

Thanks so much to Jeane for visiting The Burton Review and answering my questions. And now for my lucky readers, I have a question for you, and I will choose among one of your answers a winner for the new novel, His Last Letter, by Jeane Westin.
 
To enter for the giveaway:
Please comment here with your answer to that question, leaving your email address. This is a mandatory entry.
For extra entries:
+2 for a graphic link to this post on your blog (sidebar or post)
+2 to those who Facebook this post
+1 for a Twitter Post
+1 for another Twitter Post on another day.
 
Please leave links to any of the extra entries posts that you are entering for.
 
Good Luck!!
 
Contest available to USA residents only courtesy of the publisher. Ends August 14, 2010.

As part of the Round Table event this week, Catherine has obliged us and fashioned many many guest posts for us at The Round Table. What a sweetheart she is to take her time and compose all of these original essays, we all very much appreciate the dedication she has to her work. Let it not go to waste, please leave a comment letting her know you were here. Without further ado, here is Catherine and her newest guest post:




Let us begin with Joseph de Limoëlan, the head of the conspiracy to assassinate Napoléon Bonaparte in Paris. He was 34 years of age at the time of the attack, a tall, handsome man with blue eyes and dark hair, gold-rimmed spectacles and an aristocratic air. After years spent as a Chouan, a royalist insurgent, he is the one who planned to detonate the bomb, placed on a horse-drawn cart, in the midst of a busy street. All the busier that evening because people wanted to see Napoléon Bonaparte's carriage on its way to the Opera. It was also Christmas Eve, the shops and cafés were still open, and many were headed for the houses of friends to celebrate the holiday.

That did not give pause to Limoëlan, though he had to know that the collateral damage would be atrocious. There were dozens of casualties, and so many houses were blown up that the street itself was later condemned and destroyed in its entirety. Limoëlan himself had found a little street vendor, a girl by the name of Marianne Peusol, to hold the bridle of the horse that drew the carriage. He had to know that the child, closest to the bomb, was sure to die.


The man was the coldest of cold-blooded killers. Yet he was engaged to a young lady, a friend of his sisters, and every clue I found pointed to an attachment that was mutual, and very deep. I also found out that his father and several of his relatives, prominent members of the nobility of Brittany, had been guillotined in Paris a few years earlier as royalist conspirators. That is no excuse, of course, but it puts Limoëlan's hate for the city and its inhabitants in perspective.

Pierre de Saint-Régent, who was Limoëlan's second in command, was no less interesting. He was also a nobleman from Brittany, though from a minor and impoverished family. His pointed nose gave his face the look of a ferret, and he did not have the elegant manners of his comrade. Hardened by years of combat, first in the Royal Navy before the Revolution, and later in the royalist insurgency, he was the one who actually lit the fuse that detonated the bomb.

Nevertheless, in the days that led to the attack, Saint-Régent took great pains, and great risks, to purchase a pug, and order a sterling silver dog collar to present to his "lady." Who was she? The real investigation never uncovered her identity, but trust a historical novelist to fill in the blanks… Of course the lady in question is one of the fictional characters of FOR THE KING.


The third assassin, François Carbon, nicknamed Le Petit François, Short Francis, is quite a different sort of character. I discovered someone totally repulsive, physically and morally. Squat, fat, abusive, vulgar, garish in his dress, and yet fancying himself a great favorite with the ladies… Also a Chouan, Carbon accompanied Limoëlan to Paris as his valet and jack-of-all-trades, and he helped the two other men drive the cart on which sat the bomb to Rue Nicaise. Comical as he may seem at times, he too was a killer. I could not find any portrait of him, though he is easy to picture from the descriptions of witnesses.


"How to" manuals purporting to teach the craft of writing warn the would-be novelist to stay clear of characters devoid of any nuance. But in this case I couldn't help it: the real François Carbon was as I describe him in FOR THE KING. And actually some readers tell me they found him totally compelling, repellent as he is.


Thanks so much to Catherine for writing such a fun historical novel that was steeped in mystery with even a bit of romance! Read my review of the book here, and enter for your chance to win your very own hardcover of FOR THE KING, which is available for purchase July 6, 2010.

For the rest of the Events of the Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table group, please visit the Calendar of Events page where you will find all the links to other posts. There are many opportunities to win the gorgeous book as well.

In the late 1470s, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand approached Pope Sixtus IV with a request to establish an inquisition in Castille. The purpose of this tribunal would be to root out the “judaizing heresy” among so-called New Christians. Many of these New Christians descended from Jews forced to convert to Christianity two generations earlier.

The pope refused to authorize the establishment of this special inquisition. Isabella and Ferdinand answered by threatening to withdraw their military support for the pope’s crusade against the Ottomans.

This crusade was Sixtus’s most important project. The Islamic Ottoman empire had been slowly expanding since the 13th century. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was felt as an earthquake throughout Christendom. During the following decades, the Ottomans took the Balkans, Greece, much of North Africa, and even parts of present-day Italy. From where the pope sat, it looked like Rome was next. His primary responsibility was to protect Christendom.

Although wealthy New Christians effectively made their case to the pope, all their eloquence and gifts were worth little compared to the possibility of Spain’s withdrawal from the pope’s crusade. Yielding to Isabella and Ferdinand’s pressure, Sixtus IV finally allowed them to establish an inquisition in Castille. In a break with tradition, he even allowed them to appoint the inquisitors themselves.

To understand what Isabella and Ferdinand did with this historically unique opportunity, and why, you have to understand who they were.

In my view, Isabella of Castille was a usurper. She invented the myth that her half-brother Henry IV was “impotent” and/or a “sodomizer” and that Henry’s daughter Joanna, to whom he willed the throne, was illegitimate. She waged war on Henry and Joanna and ultimately prevailed, but only by marrying Ferdinand and adding the power of Aragon’s military to her own.

Isabella and Ferdinand were conquerors. Once they consolidated power in their own lands, they were not inclined to stop. In attempting to retake Granada from the Moors, they appealed to their soldiers’ religious zeal and patriotic fervor. But where had that zeal been when Isabella and Ferdinand had threatened to withdraw from the pope’s crusade? Surely the Ottomans represented a far greater threat to Christendom than the tiny Nasrid emirate in Granada.

The Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I, of Castile and León

In order to carry out their plan and achieve the greatness for which they believed they were destined, the monarchs needed capital. The fastest way to acquire this capital was to steal it from New Christians, who as a class had acquired sudden wealth since leaving their ghettos. By weakening the New Christians, Isabella and Ferdinand were able to appease their aristocratic supporters, many of whom felt threatened by the rapid rise of an “upper middle class” of New Christian traders, physicians, legal advisors, and cartographers.

In By Fire, By Water, I hinted at the struggle between the New Christians, the pope, and the monarchs of Spain. In one of the early drafts, I developed this thread further. But I came to feel it distracted from the thrust of my story, which needed to be focused on Luis de Santangel and Judith Migdal even while suggesting the complexity of their world. By Fire, By Water is not a book about the Inquisition per se. It is the story of a man whom the Spanish Inquisition scorched but did not burn.

The publisher is generously offering two copies for a giveaway (US/Canada only). To enter for this random drawing, you must comment with your email address, discussing anything related to the topics above, such as Isabella of Castille or Ferdinand of Aragon, Christopher Columbus/Colon (a character in the novel), or the Spanish Inquisition.

Edited to change the Giveaway date to May 28th. Good Luck!

Happy Sunday! Sip along with your lukewarm coffee from this morning, click the pics to visit other virtual reading rooms.. tell us..what are you reading this week??

Let's tell you what I've been reading and where I am online today.. Yes, I've been interviewed! The fabulous blogger Maria Grazia interviews bloggers most weeks, and she has selected me to be her Blogger Buddy this week. Visit the interview at her blog and enter to win the Double Book International Giveaway I am offering.

This week I have finished reading Jane Feather's newest historical romance titled "All The Queen's Players". The review also qualifies for the Tudor Mania Reading Challenge, which is my review #2 for the challenge and therefore I am winning so far =)

I am now reading Catherine Delors For The King which is to be released early July 2010 and is another Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table Event. And I am really enjoying this read which is very much written in a mystery format which I do enjoy. The last one I read I had devoured in a day, which was 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan. That was set in New York in 1857, and For The King is set in France after the revolution in 1800. I have seen comments where some readers were not enthralled with Delors previous novel, which was written in a first-person narrative in a memoir style, but this style is entirely different so don't let the opinion of her first book sway you from reading this one. Of course there were some that loved her Mistress of The Revolution and I have no doubt that many will enjoy For The King as well. It is fast paced and includes the details of the period without reading like a textbook. It is all put together very well.

This week I will host an author guest post from new author Mitchell James Kaplan on May 18 in honor of the release day for By Fire, By Water. This was an inspiring read that dealt with the political and emotional turmoils of the Spanish Inquisition as seen through two very strong characters. Read my review here, and then come back soon to enter for the two book giveaway with the author post.

The giveaway of the autographed copy of the new release for D.L. Bogdan's Secrets of The Tudor Court goes to the very lucky winner of Jennifer of Rundpinne! Congrats to her.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Sunday and gets prepared mentally for another Monday to come. I am not ready.

The Darcy Cousins

THE DARCY COUSINS BY MONICA FAIRVIEW—IN STORES APRIL 2010

One might reasonably expect that a young lady dispatched in disgrace across the Atlantic to England would strive to behave with decorum, but Mr. Darcy's incorrigible American cousin, Clarissa Darcy, manages to provoke Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr Collins, and the parishioners of Hunsford all in one morning! And there are more surprises in store for that bastion of tradition, Rosings Park, when the family gathers for their annual Easter visit. Georgiana Darcy, generally a shy model of propriety, decides to take a few lessons from her unconventional cousin. And Anne de Bourgh, encouraged to escape her "keeper," Mrs. Jenkinson, simply… vanishes.

In this tale of friendship, rebellion, and love, two young women entering Society forge a strong connection. A connection that is sorely tested when they both set out to win the heart of a most dashing—and dangerous— gentleman.

Book One: The Other Mr Darcy (2009)

"In this highly original Pride and Prejudice sequel by British author Monica Fairview, Caroline Bingley is our heroine. Caroline is sincerely broken-hearted when Mr. Darcy marries Lizzy Bennet— that is, until she meets his charming and sympathetic American cousin…

Mr. Robert Darcy is as charming as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy is proud, and he is stunned to find the beautiful Caroline weeping at his cousin's wedding. Such depth of love, he thinks, is rare and precious. For him, it's nearly love at first sight. But these British can be so haughty and off-putting. How can he let the young lady, who was understandably mortified to be discovered in such a vulnerable moment, know how much he feels for and sympathizes with her?"

Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn just came out to rave reviews on April 6, 2010. We have an opportunity for my readers at The Burton Review to score a copy of this book for themselves; details are at the end of the post.

Please welcome author Kate Quinn as I ask her a few questions:

I've read that you started to write at an early age. What authors helped to inspire you as a child? Did you grow up wanting to be an accomplished writer?
I read everything I could get my hands on as a child – C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, all the L. Frank Baum Oz books, Edith Hamilton’s Greek mythology, countless others. But what inspired me the most was history itself: I read biographies of Julius Caesar, Elizabeth I, Peter the Great, and it astounded me that such fascinating people really lived. My first straggling hand-written story (at age seven) was all about the assassination of Edward II, full of sex and murder long before I understood what either one was. I can’t say I ever made a decision to become a writer; I just was one. I was writing a novel by the time I was ten and haven’t stopped since. A lot of those early novel projects were absolute disasters, but it was a learning experience.

Tell us about your writing journey and your inspiration behind Mistress of Rome?
Ever since seeing Kirk Douglas in Spartacus when I was about eight, I’d wanted to write a book about a gladiator – I just didn’t get around to it until I was nineteen. I had just gone three thousand miles off to college in Boston, and I knew absolutely nobody. So I percolated a story and escaped into ancient Rome instead. I didn’t have a computer, so I had to pack up my books and notes and head to the university computer lab to work. It wasn’t the most harmonious of settings – a huge underground basement filled with ominous neon lighting and tight-lipped graduate students all trying to finish a thesis and hissing at you if you made a sound. But at least there wasn’t anything to do there but work, so I’d just crank up the Gladiator soundtrack on my headset and hammer away. By the end of the semester I had a book – though getting it published was a different journey. That took a few more years, and a query letter I probably re-wrote twenty different ways.

What books were the most useful while researching for this novel?
Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars was my most valuable primary source. He was an Imperial archivist in early Imperial Rome who wrote a biography of the first twelve Emperors. It’s a terrifically entertaining read, because Suetonius threw scholarly objectivity completely out the window and wrote a rumor-packed, scandal-laden, twelve-part gossip column. He gives details of each Emperor’s appearance, their character, their personal habits, who they slept with, who they worked with, who they had killed. Who knows how much of it is true? All I could do was guess. Nowadays Suetonius would be working for Us Weekly or maybe Gossip Girl.

Most of your characters in your novel are portrayed as cruel and heartless. While writing and being immersed within your storytelling, did this bleed over into your personal life and affect you mentally while writing the story?
Well, I hope not all of them are cruel and heartless, just trapped in bad situations! Fortunately, I can say that no matter how much time I spent with the psychopathic Emperor Domitian or the monumentally self-absorbed Lepida, I never felt any crossover from their lives to mine. (And a good thing too, since I’d be arrested for murder, assassination, conspiracy, incest, rape, and worst of all, cruelty to animals.) Villains are fun to write in fiction – you get to explore what it’s like to be a despot or a man-eater without actually doing wrong yourself.

Are there any surprising revelations that you came across during your research?
What I found most surprising (and gratifying) was the number of personal quirks attributed to Domitian. Many were reported by Suetonius, so it’s doubtful if they’re all factual, but it makes a portrait of a very odd Emperor. According to the rumors of the time Domitian threw all-black dinner parties, speared flies out of the air on the point of his pen, and wrote a manual on hair care. He made his niece into his mistress, but had a popular Roman actor killed on suspicion the man was having an affair with his Empress. He hated children, getting rid of both his own two nephews and an unborn child by his niece, yet was accompanied at the Colosseum by a boy in a red tunic with whom he chatted non-stop about the gladiators in the arena. The more cheerful his jokes got, the more likely it was that people would start dying. He asked his astrologer to predict his death date, and the man got it right down to the hour of day. Who knows if all of this is true, but it was reported as true at the time, and created a splendidly quirky villain for me.

Which of the characters were your personal favorite to create and why?
That’s like trying to pick a favorite child – I love them all for different reasons, even the villains. Probably my favorites are Thea and Arius, my slave heroine and gladiator hero. They are very damaged people in their ways, but they deserve happiness with each other. Thea has endurance and humor even in the worst situations, and Arius has been brutalized all his life but has a huge capacity for love. And I have a special fondness for Marcus, the intelligent Senator who always knows more than he lets on – based, I’ll admit, on Derek Jacobi’s wonderful performance in the mini-series I, Claudius. Jacobi’s Claudius had a lot of bad luck in his life, so I made sure Marcus got a happier ending.

How excited are you that you have now become a published author? What's been the best part of the journey? Is there a bad part to the journey?
Publication has been the world’s best roller coaster. There is not one day I don’t wake up and think how lucky I am to be in this position. From editing to copy-editing, searching for blurbs to searching for the perfect cover, this has been an education and a blast. The best part of it all has been working with the team of people who really put this book into motion – my agent, my editor, my copy-editor, the Berkley sales team; I was lucky to find such incredible people who adored my book and worked so hard to make it the best they could. There hasn’t been much of a bad side yet, unless it’s reading the inevitable negative reviews. You go into this knowing you won’t please everybody, but it can still be a bit squelching when you find someone online who hated your baby. Still, I have a rule of thumb about negative reviews: if the reviewer is incapable of using “its” vs. “it’s” or the various forms of “there” correctly, I do not have to feel bad that they disliked my book.

What is the topic of the next novel that you are working on?
I’m not done with ancient Rome yet, or maybe it’s not done with me. Currently I’m working on both a sequel and a prequel to Mistress of Rome. It wasn’t intended to be a trilogy, but as I was writing I started to wonder about the lives of some of the smaller characters. The prequel reaches back to the Year of Four Emperors, and features Emperor Domitian’s extremely enigmatic wife as a young woman. The sequel focuses on two characters who are just children in Mistress of Rome: a senator’s daughter who grows up with a yen for adventure, and a gladiator’s son who ends up serving in Emperor Trajan’s wars. The prequel is in the editing stage and the sequel is about half finished, so who knows when they’ll be out.

Thanks for having me!
~
I loved learning about Kate's journey with this novel, and I am so glad that it seems to be a big success already! I hope I get to read this soon myself, my fellow historical fiction bloggers have already written of how much they have enjoyed this one.

For my USA followers, I am offering a chance to win one copy of Mistress of Rome directly from the publisher.

To enter:
Comment with your email address and:
Tell me what your favorite "Roman" themed book or movie has been so far.

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Good Luck!

Giveaway ends April 23rd.