Tanzanite's Castle Full of Books

For Swyfte--adventurer, rake, scholar, and spy--this is the darkest time he has known. His mentor, the grand old spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, is dead. The new head of the secret service is more concerned about his own advancement than defending the nation, and a rival faction at the court has established its own network of spies. Plots are everywhere, and no one can be trusted. Meanwhile, England's greatest enemy, the haunted Unseelie Court, prepares to make its move.
A dark, bloody scheme, years in the making, is about to be realized. The endgame begins on the night of the first performance of Dr. Faustus, the new play by Swyfte's close friend and fellow spy Christopher Marlowe. A devil is conjured in the middle of the crowded theater, taking the form of Will Swyfte's long-lost love, Jenny--and it has a horrifying message for him alone.
That night Marlowe is murdered, and Swyfte embarks on a personal and brutal crusade for vengeance. Friendless, with enemies on every side and a devil at his back, the spy may find that even his vaunted skills are no match for the supernatural powers arrayed against him.



The Fifth Servant by Kenneth Wishnia.  US paperback release February 8, 2011. In 1592, Prague is a relatively safe refuge for Jews who live within the gated walls of its ghetto. But the peace is threatened when a young Christian girl is found with her throat slashed in a Jewish shop on the eve of Passover. Charged with blood libel, the shopkeeper and his family are arrested, and all that stands in the way of a rabid Christian mob is a clever Talmudic scholar, newly arrived from Poland, named Benyamin Ben-Akiva. Granted just three days to bring the true killer to justice—hampered by rabbinic law, with no allies or connections, and only his wits, knowledge, and faith to guide him—Benyamin sets off on a desperate search for answers. Following a twisting trail from the streets to the shul, from the forbidden back rooms of a ghetto brothel to the emperor Rudolf II's lavish palace, he will dare the impossible—and commit the unthinkable—to save the Jews of Prague . . . and himself.




Sir Walter Raleigh:  In Life and Legend by Mark Nicholls and Penry Williams.  Non-fiction.  UK release February 10, 2011; US release April 2011.  New biography of one of the key figures in British history focusing on both his writing and legacy. Sir Walter Raleigh is a figure writ large in popular imagination. Yet how can we understand this man who was soldier, voyager, visionary, courtier, politician, poet, historian, patriot and 'traitor'? We know some facts, and much can be learned from Raleigh's prose and poetry about his ideas, personality, feelings and values. Important new texts of his works have recently been published: we now possess reliable versions of his poems, his letters and his travel narratives. No biography of Raleigh, however, can be complete without an assessment of his posthumous reputation. Myths that accumulated around him tell us something about the man himself, but far more about the perceptions of his own and subsequent generations. Raleigh's talents as a writer ensured his positive legacy, but the appropriation of his legend for so many differing political uses has left us with a complex picture. In this original and important new biography Williams and Nicholls set this right.