Tanzanite's Castle Full of Books

The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior by Paul Strathern. Non-fiction. US paperback release January 11, 2011. The Renaissance was a child of many fathers--none more important than the three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history: Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesar Borgia. Each could not have been more different. They would meet only for a short time in 1502 but the events that transpired, would significantly alter their perceptions--and the course of Western history. In 1502, Italy was riven by conflict, with the city of Florence as the ultimate prize. Machiavelli, the consummate political manipulator, attempted to placate the savage Borgia by volunteering the services of Da Vinci as Borgia’s chief military engineer. That autumn, the three men embarked together on a brief, perilous, and fateful journey through the mountains, remote villages and hill towns of the Italian Romagna--the details of which were revealed in Machiavelli’s often-daily dispatches and Da Vinci’s meticulous notebooks. In a book that is at once a gripping adventure story and a trenchant analysis of how men make history, The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior limns each man’s personality, their interactions, and the forces that shaped their world. Superbly written, meticulously researched, here is a work of narrative genius--whose subject is the very nature of genius itself.




The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean. US release February 1, 2011. Royal intrigue, romance and illicit affairs – Rebecca Dean delivers another glorious novel that will do for Edward VIII what Philippa Gregory has done for Henry VIII. In Edward VIII’s golden years as the Prince of Wales, it seems as if nothing can stand in the way of his becoming one of the most charismatic and beloved kings ever to rule Great Britain and her Empire. But when he befriends the four daughters of the late Sir Greville Houghton, his world is turned upside down. At age 18, Edward enters into a love affair with the youngest of the Houghton girls, 17 year old Lily, and insists that she is the girl he intends to marry. But he cannot marry without his father’s consent, which King George adamantly refuses to give. Crushed, Edward embarks on a series of scandalous and meaningless affairs in attempts to spite his father and bury the memory of his beloved Lily. But it turns out that the tragic consequences of their childhood affair will be far reaching and devastating for both him and for the country he is destined to rule.





The Raven Queen by Jules Watson. US and UK release February 22, 2011. Maeve is one of the most legendary, infamous, and complex women in Irish literature – the woman who would be king. Tired of the shackles put on her by her husband and society, her desire for freedom leads her – and all of Ireland – into war. But even chaos can hold its own beauty, and as Maeve plunges deeper into the affairs of state, it is her own affairs that she never thought she’d have to contend with. Expertly researched, beautifully written, The Raven Queen is a touch of history, a touch of romance and a touch of magic sure to gain Watson a legion of fans.







The She Wolves: Women Who Ruled Before Elizabeth I by Helen Castor. Non-fiction. US release February 22, 2011.
When Edward VI—Henry VIII’s longed-for son—in 1553 the extraordinary fact was that there was no one left to claim the title of king of England; all the contenders for the crown were female. Upon Henry’s demise, England would experience the “monstrous regiment”—the unnatural rule—of a woman. Yet female rule in England had a past. Four hundred years earlier, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror, came tantalizingly close to securing the throne for herself. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, three more exceptional women—Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou—discovered, as queen, consort, and dowager, how much was possible if presumptions of male rule were not confronted explicitly—and just how quickly they might be vilified as “she-wolves” for their ambitions. The stories of these women—brought to life here in all their vivid humanity—reveal the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman; and the king was the head of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands? The subject of women and power—a compelling combination of the personal and political, of private and public lives—is extraordinarily relevant to our time. By exploring the lives of these women, Helen Castor’s shows us just how far women and men have come—and how little has changed.



The Last Crusaders by Barnaby Rogerson. Non-fiction. US release March 29, 2011.  The Hundred-Year Battle for the Center of the World. The Crusades were the bridge between medieval and modern history, between feudalism and colonialism. In many ways, the little explored later Crusades were the most significant of them all, for they made the crisis truly global. The Last Crusaders is about the period’s last great conflict between East and West, and the titanic contest between Habsburg-led Christendom and the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From the great naval campaigns and the ferocious struggle to dominate the North African shore, the conflict spread out along trade routes, consuming nations and cultures, destroying dynasties, and spawning the first colonial empires in South America and the Indian Ocean. Acclaimed scholar of Islamic history and author Barnaby Rogerson illuminates the Last Crusades in an accessible and skillful manner. He shows how, to this day, the disputed borders of the Crusades era stand as defining frontiers and dividing lines between languages, nations, and religions. From Constantinople to Fez, from Rhodes to Granada, The Last Crusaders is narrative history at its richest and most compelling.




Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran. US release April 12, 2011. In the fourth novel from national bestselling author Michelle Moran, we depart from the ancient world and enter the gilded but troubled court of Marie Antoinette and the intriguing story of Marie Tussaud, a woman who survived the French Revolution only by creating death masks of the beheaded aristocracy. When Marie Tussaud learns the exciting news the royal family will be visiting her famed wax museum, she never dreams that the king’s sister will request her presence at Versailles, as a royal tutor in wax sculpting. As Marie familiarizes herself with Princess Elisabeth and beings to know Marie Antoinette and Louis SVI, she witnesses the glamorous life of courts, a much different world than her home on the Boulevard de Temple of Paris where bread can only be had on the black market and men sell their teeth to put food on their tables. The year is 1788 and men like Desmoulins, Marat, and Robespierre are meeting in the salons of Paris speaking against the monarchy; there’s whispered talk of revolution. Spanning five years from budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax molding saver her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom.



Broken Promises by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman. US release April 12, 2011. This rousing novel explores a little-known by crucial facet of the Civil War in a story brimming with loyalty, courage, love and international intrigue. It is 1861, and the conflict that has been plaguing America for decades has suddenly erupted, pitting the industrial North against the agricultural South. Fearing that England will support the Confederate cause, President Lincoln sends Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, to London to thwart their aid. But when he arrives, accompanied by his son Henry, Adams discovers that the English are building warships for the South and it may already be too late. As he embarks on a high stakes game of espionage and diplomacy in order to save the nation the founding fathers built, his son reconnects with college friend Baxter Sams, a Southerner who has fallen in love with Englishwoman Julia Birch. But Julia’s family reviles Americans and Baxter is torn between his love for Julia, his friendship with Henry, and his obligations to his own family, who have enlisted him to run supplies across the blockade to the help the Confederacy. As tensions mount, irrevocable choices are made that will test the bonds of brothers, lovers, fathers, and sons – and change the fate of an entire country.


The Headhunter’s Daughter by Tamar Myers. US release January 25, 2011.
The second book in Tamar Myers’s new mystery series set in the Belgian Congo—with Myers's first-hand knowledge of the landscape as the backdrop for the stunning story. The plot of this novel is based loosely on Tamar's own family’s history. In 1750 her family was living in Pennsylvania when her Grandfather (about nine “greats” back) was taken captive by the Delaware Indians. Tamar’s ancestor was only seven years old. He was subsequently adopted by a Delaware Indian family and made a full member of their tribe. It wasn’t until ten years later that he was released, and that was against his will. He never did quite adjust to being “white” again.



Our Tempestuous Day by Carolly Erickson. US reissue February 1, 2011.
From 1810 to 1820, while his father, King George III, declined into madness at Windsor, besieged by nightmares of England sinking into the sea, George, the Prince of Wales, served as Regent, creating an epoch in England now known as the Regency Period.
This was the age of the opulent interiors of the prince’s palace, Carlton House, the grand scenic architecture of his Brighton Pavilion, outlandish fashion, extravagant balls, the age of Austen, Shelley and Lord Byron. Yet as Carolly Erickson’s portrait of this quicksilver age shows, beneath the veneer of the chinoiserie and the grand facades, it was also a time of explosive popular unrest, political radicalism, and the European struggle against Napoleon. Aristocratic ennui and decadence contrasted with economic upheavals in the Midlands. While Caroline, Princess of Wales and wife of the Regent, had flagrant affairs and made outrageous scenes at court, the Luddites made midnight raids on textile machinery and murdered mill owners. The fascinating personalities both at court and in society—the Royals, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, Hannah Moore and others—provide the dramatic intrigue of this excellent social history, tempered by the larger, dynamic forces of English society in flux. It is history told through the people who made it happen.