Author: Peter Mowbray
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
ISBN: 1781481717
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
It is the year 1589, and on a cold and wet January evening, Catherine de Medici, Queen Mother of France, lies close to death. For the people of this war torn country her demise will be welcome news. This is the end of the evil Jezebel, the mother of Kings and Queens whom she had dominated, manipulated and ultimately destroyed. We journey with Catherine from her early political emergence to her leading role in one of the worst atrocities in European history. We will see why few loved and many feared the woman who would become known as - Madame Serpent.
Author: Judith Merkle Riley
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307410110
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
In the court of Henry VIII, there are many secrets—and some people will kill to keep them hidden.Susanna Dallet is the daughter of a Flemish painter and wife to a philandering husband, living in the court of Henry VIII. When her husband is murdered, Susanna is suddenly left with a household to provide for and nothing to her name. Her days of anonymity are over when Susanna finds that guild rules preventing women from working do not apply at the king’s court, and she manages to secure a position as a miniature-portrait painter. Before long, she has not only made a name for herself, she is close to those who surround Princess Mary. But even in this lofty company, Susanna is not safe. An old manuscript that she has inherited turns out to hold the keys to an age-old mystery, and the forces that claimed her husband are closing in. As danger looms, Susanna joins with Robert Ashton, secretary to Henry’s cunning and ruthless adviser Archbishop Wolsey, and together they must fight a fearsome society in league with a demon.Combining heartpounding action, sly humor, romance, and supernatural twists, The Serpent Garden is the story of a creative and resourceful woman who unwittingly finds herself in a dangerous—and deadly—game of hide-and-seek.
Author: CATHERINE. BUTTERFIELD
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789798350924
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: Sophie Perinot
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466883480
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
It's the winter of 1564 and the beautiful young Princess Margot is summoned to her mother's household, where her true education begins in earnest. Known across Europe as Madame la Serpente, Queen Catherine is an intimidating and unmoving presence in France, even as her country recovers from the first of many devastating religious wars. Among the crafty nobility of Queen Catherine's royal court, Margot learns the intriguing and unspoken rules she must live by to please her manipulative family. Eager to be an obedient daughter, Margot embraces her role as a pawn to be married off to the most convenient bidder. Despite her loyalty, Margot finds herself charmed by the powerful and charismatic Duc de Guise and falls for him even as she is promised to another. Finally setting aside her happiness for duty, Margot leaves the man she loves for Henri of Navarre, a Huguenot leader and a notorious heretic. Yet Queen Catherine's schemes are endless, and Margot's brother plots vengeance in the streets of Paris. Forced to choose between her family and what's right, Margot at last finds the strength within herself to forge her own destiny. Médicis Daughter is historical fiction at its finest, weaving a unique coming-of-age story and a forbidden love with one of the most dramatic and violent events in French history.
Author: Princess Michael of Kent
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743251067
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
Set against the stunning backdrop of Renaissance France, The Serpent and the Moon is a true story of love, war, intrigue, betrayal, and persecution. At its heart is one of the world's greatest love stories: the lifelong devotion of King Henri II of France to Diane de Poitiers, a beautiful aristocrat who was nineteen years older than her lover. At age fourteen, Henri was married to fourteen-year-old Catherine de' Medici, an unattractive but extremely wealthy heiress who was to bring half of Italy to France as her dowry. When Catherine met Henri on her wedding day, she fell instantly in love, but Henri could see no one but the beautiful Diane. When Henri eventually became king, he and Diane ruled France as one. Meanwhile, Catherine took as her secret motto the words "Hate and Wait" and lived for the day Diane would die and she could win Henri's love and rule by his side. Fate had another plan. Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent, herself a descendant of both Catherine and Diane, imbues this seldom-told story with an insider's grasp of royal life. The Serpent and the Moon is a fascinating love story as well as a richly woven history of an extraordinary time.
Author: Anne O'Brien
Publisher: MIRA
ISBN: 0778314316
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 496
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Book Description
1415: The jewel in the French crown, Katherine de Valois, is waiting under lock and key for King Henry V. While he's been slaughtering her kinsmen in Agincourt, Katherine has been praying for marriage to save her from her misery. But the brutal King is one of war. It is her crown he wants not her innocent love. For Katherine, a pawn in a ruthless political game, England is a lion's den of greed, avarice and mistrust. And when the magnificent King leaves her widowed at twenty-one she is a prize ripe for the taking. Her heart is on her sleeve, her young son the future monarch, and her hand in marriage worth a kingdom. This is a deadly game; one the Dowager Queen must learn fast. The players Duke of Gloucester, Edmund Beaufort and Owen Tudor are circling. Who will have her? Who will stop her? Who will ruin her?
Author: Nancy Goldstone
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316409677
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 518
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Book Description
The riveting true story of mother-and-daughter queens Catherine de' Medici and Marguerite de Valois, whose wildly divergent personalities and turbulent relationship changed the shape of their tempestuous and dangerous century. Set in magnificent Renaissance France, this is the story of two remarkable women, a mother and daughter driven into opposition by a terrible betrayal that threatened to destroy the realm. Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for thirty years. Her youngest daughter Marguerite, the glamorous "Queen Margot," was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control. When Catherine forces the Catholic Marguerite to marry her Protestant cousin Henry of Navarre against her will, and then uses her opulent Parisian wedding as a means of luring his followers to their deaths, she creates not only savage conflict within France but also a potent rival within her own family. Rich in detail and vivid prose, Goldstone's narrative unfolds as a thrilling historical epic. Treacherous court politics, poisonings, international espionage, and adultery form the background to a story that includes such celebrated figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Nostradamus. The Rival Queens is a dangerous tale of love, betrayal, ambition, and the true nature of courage, the echoes of which still resonate.
Author: Leonie Frieda
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063235919
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
The inspiration for the STARZ original series, The Serpent Queen, premiering September 11. “A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle and fearless woman fighting for survival and power in a world of gangsterish brutality, routine assassination and religious mania. . . . Frieda has brought a largely forgotten heroine-villainess and a whole sumptuously vicious era back to life. . . . This is The Godfather meets Elizabeth.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Poisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds. Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine’s own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine’s story from her troubled childhood in Florence to her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of France; her transformation of French culture to her reign as a queen who would use brutality to ensure her children’s royal birthright. Brilliantly executed, this enthralling biography goes beyond myth to paint a very human portrait of this remarkable figure.
Author: Peter Mowbray
Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing
ISBN: 1803818719
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
England 1327, and after a daring raid, a prisoner is liberated from the imposing Berkeley Castle. Italy, 1334, and at the remote monastery of Sant Alberto, an eminent envoy of Pope John XXII has arrived to speak with a hermit that dwells within the small community. Who then is the hermit, and why would he be of interest to the pope? When the hermit is confronted with the ghosts of a long distant past, together with the envoy and a kindly monk, he relives again a past full of love, triumph, distrust and hate. A life of privilege and a rich ancestry that offered so much would eventually lead to ruin and disgrace. A legacy that would be doomed to failure. His love for two men would bring about the downfall of this man so desperately unsuited to the life of nobility and power to which he was born. Past memories are revealed and days of both triumph and despair are relived as the hermit confronts a former life, laid buried for so long. Can this tortured soul finally find redemption in the confession of grave sins from the past? Victories and defeats, love and death all play a part in the story of a man whom history has designated a foolish ineffectual character. A man whose fall from grace had led him from the glories of the English royal court to a dusty sun-drenched monastery in Lombardy where he had hoped to forget.
Author: Judith Merkle Riley
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ISBN: 9780140258806
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 484
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Book Description
From the author of "The Oracle Glass" comes an enthralling historical mystery novel of suspense, romance, and a tinge of the occult set in the time of Henry VIII. Newly widowed and placed in the entourage of the princess bride of the French king, painter Susanna Dallet unknowingly carries with her to France the key to a secret that will embroil her in diabolical intrigue.
