Thanks to inka for sharing this on Goodreads

My pretty  maids all in a row..

1984

Sir Richard FiztGilbert deClare, sitting astride his great black war horse Taran, no English knight was bolder. To the tempestuous Lady Eve he had pledged his troth, but he longed to posses in timeless ecstasy her wild, resisting heart.
Born in a fierce, feudal world as cruel as it was courtly, theirs was the rapturous love destined to change the face of the Irish nation forever.


Isabel de Clare. Her tawny beauty was a King's prize, to be locked within a brooding castle until she exchanged its gray walls for a husband's tyranny...

William Marshal. The towering knight armed with a will of steel, he conquered Isabel's senses in a single blazing night.

Lovers bound by destiny. His power matched her pride. Their passion was a battlefield with no quarter given - and none asked. And with every battle they gambled what they held most dear...the tenderest of loves, in the heat of ceaseless challenge so dearly gained, and so easily lost...

1986

Eleanor Plantagenet. The raven-haired princess of the roses, betrothed as a child, betrayed as a woman- an innocent flower waiting to be plucked by the stranger she must call her lord.. her master.. her husband. William Fitzwilliam Marshal {fictional son of William Marshal}.
The powerful Earl of Pembroke, his castle was a possession defended by his mighty sword; his bride was a royal prize granted by his king... Their destiny was desire. His passion demanded her surrender. Her pride refused to yield even as her body submitted to a traitorous pleasure in his arms. Theirs was a fierce battle of hearts, where looks could wound, where words could kill, where wanton desire drover her into rapture's flames... but kindled a war that could destroy all they cherished - or inspire the triumph of glorious love eternal...

1987

Roanna Royston. The beautiful tavern wench from the lusty London docks whom fortune made a lady...she was as bold and rebellious as the wild mane of hair that tumbled 'round her shoulders - until one man's savage passions possessed her.

Giles fitzWilliam. The bastard son of one of England's noblest families, the stableboy who became a knight....he longed for the fiery tempered Roanna, had always wanted her, would never stop wanting her...

Destined for Danger, Desire, and Triumph.
While all of England writhed in the flames of rebellion they loved and fought with a passion that could never be conquered. Surrounded by treachery, accused of treason, forced into captivity, neither would surrender...until a final ravishing climax brought the lady and the knight together on the peaks of burning love..


*whew, off I go to fan myself*

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week. And I am adding what I purchased, swapped, etc.
Warning: Exploring Mailbox Mondays across the blogosphere will lead to toppling wishlists and to-be-read-piles! But it's the thrill of the chase that counts!


There was no Mailbox Monday at The Burton Review last week because I only recieved two books on Saturday and I actually don't get on the computer much during the weekend. SO those two are added to this lot. The slow week of last week was completely redemptive this week.

The too cool for school blogger, Amy at Passages to the Past, sent this one my way. I missed out last year so I am looking forward to this one.

Ice Land by Betsy Tobin

"Iceland, AD 1000

Freya knows that her people are doomed. Warned by the Fates of an impending disaster, she must embark on a journey to find a magnificent gold necklace, one said to possess the power to alter the course of history. But even as Freya travels deep into the mountains of Iceland, the country is on the brink of war. The new world order of Christianity is threatening the old ways of Iceland's people, and tangled amidst it all are two star-crossed lovers who destiny draws them together-even as their families are determined to tear them apart.
Infused with the rich history and mythology of Iceland, Betsy Tobin's sweeping novel is an epic adventure of forbidden love, lust, jealousy, faith and magical wonder set under the shadow of a smoldering volcano."

From Swaptree:
Secret for A Nightingale by Victoria Holt aka Jean Plaidy
"As a young girl in India, beautiful, high-spirited Susanna Pleydell had first became aware of her special gifts to soothe the sick. But she had sacrificed that calling when she married the dashing and sophisticated Aubrey St. Clare. When they return home to London, however, Aubrey has changed. Susanna discovers she has married a man with a weakness for opium and the occult. And even more menacing, Aubrey has met the sinister Dr. Damien Adar, whose hold over him is fierce and frightening...."

Also from Swaptree:
Penhallow by Georgette Heyer (1942)
"The death of menacing old man Adam Penhallow, on the eve of his birthday, seems at first to be by natural causes. But Penhallow had ruled his Cornish roost with an iron will and a sharp tongue, playing one relative against another and giving both servants and kin cause to hate him, so that when it emerges that he was poisoned, there are more than a dozen prime suspects."

In celebration of all things William Marshal, of The Greatest Knight fame by Elizabeth Chadwick, I just could not resist these bodice rippers:
both of the following books by Mary Pershall from Paperbackswap (I received another one of this series a few weeks ago):

A Shield of Roses
"Lady Eve MacMurrough, fairest of Erin's fair flowers, her flashing emerald eyes held secrets no man could resist. Defiant daughter of one king and willful ward of another, she would bring the purity of true love to her marriage bed.
Sir Richard FiztGilbert deClare, sitting astride his great black war horse Taran, no English knight was bolder. To the tempestous Lady Eve he had pledged his troth, but he longed to posses in timeless ecstasy her wild, resisting heart.
Born in a fierce, feudal world as cruel as it was courtly, theirs was the rapturous love destined to change the face of the Irish nation forever."

 Dawn of the White Rose
"Isabel de Clare. Her tawny beauty was a King's prize, to be locked within a brooding castle until she exchanged its gray walls for a husband's tyranny...

William Marshal. The towering knight armed with a will of steel, he conquered Isabel's senses in a single blazing night.

Lovers bound by destiny. His power matched her pride. Their passion was a battlefield with no quarter given - and none asked. And with every battle they gambled what they held most dear...the tenderest of loves, in the heat of ceaseless challenge so dearly gained, and so easily lost... "


And a fabulous swap from Paperbackswap, woohoo:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which every one else talked about when it won the Booker Prize last year. (560 pages! 10/13/2009)
"In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death."
For a future review:
No Will But His: A Novel of Kathryn Howard by Sarah A. Hoyt (April 6, 2010) (she also wrote under a penname Plain Jane, and I LOVED THAT ONE!)

"As the bereft, orphaned cousin to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard knows better than many the danger of being favored by the King. But she is a Howard, and therefore ambitious, so she assumes the role Henry VIII has assigned her-his untouched child bride, his adored fifth wife. But her innocence is imagined, the first of many lies she will have to tell to gain the throne. And the path that she will tread to do so is one fraught with the same dangers that cost Queen Anne her head."


Writing Jane Austen by Elizabeth Aston (April 13, 2010)
"Jane Austen for the twenty-first century! Mayhem ensues when a struggling young writer is chosen to complete an unfinished manuscript by a certain famous novelist... Critically acclaimed and award-winning -- but hardly bestselling -- author Georgina Jackson can't get past the first chapter of her second book. When she receives an urgent email from her agent, Georgina is certain it's bad news. Shockingly, she's offered a commission to complete a newly discovered manuscript by a major nineteenth-century author. Skeptical at first about her ability to complete the manuscript, Georgina is horrified to know that the author in question is Jane Austen.
Torn between pushing through or fleeing home to America, Georgina relies on the support of her banker-turned-science student roommate, Henry, and his quirky teenage sister, Maud -- a serious Janeite. With a sudden financial crisis looming, the only way Georgina can get by is to sign the hugely lucrative contract and finish the book. But first she has to admit she's never actually read Jane Austen!"

And check out this win! I won this from Wonders And Marvels site, which is such fun with odd historical details galore.
For The Soul of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus (Jan. 2010) by Frederick Brown (perfect for the French Historicals Reading Challenge hosted by Enchanted by Josephine!)
"Brown shows us how Paris's most iconic monuments that rose up during those years bear witness to the passionate decades-long quarrel. At one end of Paris was Gustave Eiffel's tower, built in iron and more than a thousand feet tall, the beacon of a forward-looking nation; at Paris' other end, at the highest point in the city, the basilica of the Sacre-Coeur, atonement for the country's sins and moral laxity whose punishment was France's defeat in the war . . .

Brown makes clear that the Dreyfus Affair — the cannonade of the 1890s — can only be understood in light of these converging forces. The Affair shaped the character of public debate and informed private life. At stake was the fate of a Republic born during the Franco-Prussian War and reared against bitter opposition.

The losses that abounded during this time — the financial loss suffered by thousands in the crash of the Union Generale, a bank founded in 1875 to promote Catholic interests with Catholic capital outside the Rothschilds' sphere of influence, along with the failure of the Panama Canal Company — spurred the partisan press, which blamed both disasters on Jewry.
The author writes how the roiling conflicts that began thirty years before Dreyfus did not end with his exoneration in 1900. Instead they became the festering point that led to France's surrender to Hitler's armies in 1940, when the Third Republic fell and the Vichy government replaced it, with Marshal Petain heralded as the latest incarnation of Joan of Arc, France's savior . . ."

BIG NEWS!
My new Half-Price bookstore finally opened.. about a mile away.. so that's where many lunch breaks will be spent. French Fries to go and Books!
My first purchases, with promises of a loving relationship to come with many more future purchases:
Click the linked titles to go to the Goodreads page with a description and reviews.

Mary Queen of Scots: A Novel by Margaret George (Arleigh says there's some strange s*x scene in this one)..880 pages
The Autobiography of Henry VIII with Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George (has anyone finished this one?) ..944 pages
The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George ..976 pages
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber .. 944 pages
London: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd .. 829 pages
Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart ..928 pages
The Last Boleyn: A Novel by Karen Harper ..a measly 592 pages

What are your thoughts on these selections? Have you read any of these? I am really looking forward to the Margaret George books, but they are HUGE! HUGE! If there was a chunkster challenge, these would suffice. I'll need to swear off review requests in order to read one of these, they would probably take me two weeks, three weeks if it's a snoozer.
And I did buy some at Half Price Books over the weekend but I'm saving them for next week.
What books did you receive this week?

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week. And I am adding what I purchased, swapped, etc.





This is one that I had seen since Christmas-time that I really HAD to get my greedy little hands on..




(April 1, 2010)
"In the bestselling tradition of Loving Frank and March comes a novel for anyone who loves Little Women.



Millions of readers have fallen in love with Little Women. But how could Louisa May Alcott-who never had a romance-write so convincingly of love and heart-break without experiencing it herself?

Deftly mixing fact and fiction, Kelly O'Connor McNees imagines a love affair that would threaten Louisa's writing career-and inspire the story of Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Stuck in small-town New Hampshire in 1855, Louisa finds herself torn between a love that takes her by surprise and her dream of independence as a writer in Boston. The choice she must make comes with a steep price that she will pay for the rest of her life."



From bookmooch, this was on my wishlist for awhile although I am a little wary due to some negative Amazon reviews, but when I get the time I will pick it up and see for myself:

The Sixth Wife: A Novel by Suzannah Dunn (2007)
"A gripping novel of love, passion, betrayal, and heartbreak in the unstable Tudor court following the death of King Henry VIII .

Clever, level-headed Katherine Parr has suffered through four years of marriage to the aging and irascible King Henry VIII—and she has survived, unlike the five wives who came before her. But less than a year after the old king's death, her heart is won by the dashing Thomas Seymour, and their hasty union undoes a lifetime of prudent caution.

An unwilling witness to the queen's late-blossoming love, Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk, harbors nagging suspicions of Kate's handsome and ambitious new husband. But as Catherine is drawn deeper into the web of politics ensnaring her oldest friend, it gradually becomes clear that she has her own dark tale to tell. For though Thomas might betray his wife for power, Catherine might betray her for passion, risking everything she has in a world where love is a luxury not even royalty can easily afford."

From Paperbackwap.. to continue my William Marshal quest:
A Triumph of Roses by Mary Pershall, a historical romance about the son of William Marshal and his wife Eleanor, daughter of King John and sister of King Henry III; #3 in the Roses series. Working on getting the first two.
"Eleanor Plantagenet. The raven-haired princess of the roses, betrothed as a child, betrayed as a woman- an innocent flower waiting to be plucked by the stranger she must call her lord.. her master.. her husband.
William Fitzwilliam Marshal {fictional son of William Marshal}. The powerful Earl of Pembroke, his castle was a possession defended by his mighty sword; his bride was a royal prize granted by his king...
Their destiny was desire.
His passion demanded her surrender. Her pride refused to yield even as her body submitted to a traitorous pleasure in his arms. Theirs was a fierce battle of hearts, where looks could wound, where words could kill, where wanton desire drover her into rapture's flames... but kindled a war that could destroy all tehy cherished - or inspire the triumph of glorious love eternal...
Winner of the 1985 Romantic Times Award for Best New Historical Writer."
I copied all that from the back cover since I could not find anything substantial online. If the back cover has all that purple prosey stuff I can only imagine the steamy scenes within.
For review:
Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn (Penguin April 6, 2010)


"An exciting debut: a vivid, richly imagined saga of ancient Rome from a masterful new voice in historical fiction.
Thea is a slave girl from Judaea, passionate, musical, and guarded. Purchased as a toy for the spiteful heiress Lepida Pollia, Thea will become her mistress's rival for the love of Arius the Barbarian, Rome's newest and most savage gladiator. His love brings Thea the first happiness of her life-that is quickly ended when a jealous Lepida tears them apart.

As Lepida goes on to wreak havoc in the life of a new husband and his family, Thea remakes herself as a polished singer for Rome's aristocrats. Unwittingly, she attracts another admirer in the charismatic Emperor of Rome. But Domitian's games have a darker side, and Thea finds herself fighting for both soul and sanity. Many have tried to destroy the Emperor: a vengeful gladiator, an upright senator, a tormented soldier, a Vestal Virgin. But in the end, the life of the brilliant and paranoid Domitian lies in the hands of one woman: the Emperor's mistress."