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Every week Tanzanite features upcoming historical fiction and history related non-fiction books that have come to her attention and may be of interest to others. Since she has an out of control TBR pile, so should everyone else!
The love affair between Nicholas II and Alexandra, the sickly heir to the throne, the influence of the enigmatic Rasputin on Russia and its Court, the Bolshevik Uprising that changed the face of history, the ruthless execution of the royal family, and the disputed survival of the heir: it's a cinematic chaos that the masterful Dora Levy Mossanen unravels for the reader. Seen through the eyes of Darya, Imperial Russia bursts into life. When the murderous events of 1917-18 unfold, Darya is haunted by the prophecy made by the Empress's advisor, Rasputin, and the hints to her true identity. She must find the missing Tsarevich Alexis Romanov and restore the monarchy, if she is to save herself. As in her previous novels, Mossanen draws on dramatic political history, romance, folklore to create a seductive tale of intrigue, love, sex, murder, violence and retribution.
An enthralling prequel to Steven Saylor’s bestselling Roma Sub Rosa series of mysteries set in the Ancient World.
The year is 92 B.C. Gordianus has just turned eighteen and is about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime: a far-flung journey to see the Seven Wonders of the World. Gordianus is not yet called “the Finder”—but at each of the Seven Wonders, the wide-eyed young Roman encounters a mystery to challenge the powers of deduction.
Accompanying Gordianus on his travels is his tutor, Antipater of Sidon, the world’s most celebrated poet. But there is more to the apparently harmless old poet than meets the eye. Before they leave Rome, Antipater fakes his own death and travels under an assumed identity. Looming in the background are the first rumblings of a political upheaval that will shake the entire Roman world.
Teacher and pupil journey to the fabled cities of Greece and Asia Minor, and then to Babylon and Egypt. They attend the Olympic Games, take part in exotic festivals, and marvel at the most spectacular constructions ever devised by mankind. Along the way they encounter murder, witchcraft and ghostly hauntings. Traveling the world for the first time, Gordianus discovers that amorous exploration goes hand-in-hand with crime-solving.
The mysteries of love are the true wonders of the world, and at the end of the journey, an Eighth Wonder awaits him in Alexandria.
Her name is Bethesda.
A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh by Jeff Shaara. US and UK release May 29, 2012.
In the first novel of a spellbinding new trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Shaara returns to the Civil War terrain he knows best. A Blaze of Glory takes us to the action-packed Western Theater for a vivid re-creation of one of the war’s bloodiest and most iconic engagements—the Battle of Shiloh.
It’s the spring of 1862. The Confederate Army in the West teeters on the brink of collapse following the catastrophic loss of Fort Donelson. Commanding general Albert Sidney Johnston is forced to pull up stakes, abandon the critical city of Nashville, and rally his troops in defense of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Hot on Johnston’s trail are two of the Union’s best generals: the relentless Ulysses Grant, fresh off his career-making victory at Fort Donelson, and Don Carlos Buell. If their combined forces can crush Johnston’s army and capture the railroad, the war in the West likely will be over. There’s just one problem: Johnston knows of the Union plans, and is poised to launch an audacious surprise attack on Grant’s encampment—a small settlement in southwestern Tennessee anchored by a humble church named Shiloh.
With stunning you-are-there immediacy, Shaara takes us inside the maelstrom of Shiloh as no novelist has before. Drawing on meticulous research, he dramatizes the key actions and decisions of the commanders on both sides: Johnston, Grant, Sherman, Beauregard, and the illustrious Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Here too are the thoughts and voices of the junior officers, conscripts, and enlisted men who gave their all for the cause: Confederate cavalry lieutenant James Seeley, Private Fritz “Dutchie” Bauer of the 16th Wisconsin Regiment—brave participants in a pitched back-and-forth battle whose casualty count would far surpass anything the American public had yet seen in this war. By the end of the second day of fighting, as Grant’s bedraggled forces regroup for what looks like a last stand, two major events—one of them totally unexpected—would turn the tide of the battle and perhaps the war itself.
A Blaze of Glory brings the exhilaration of battle to life and illuminates a pivotal clash-at-arms that changed the course of American history.
A real life Wolf Hall: the gripping story of the Italian diplomat who negotiated Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and sparked the creation of the Church of England
In 1533 the English monarch Henry VIII decided to divorce his wife of twenty years Catherine of Aragon in pursuit of a male heir to ensure the Tudor line. He was also head over heels in love with his wife’s lady in waiting Anne Boleyn, the future mother of Elizabeth I. But getting his freedom involved a terrific web of intrigue through the enshrined halls of the Vatican that resulted in a religious schism and the formation of the Church of England.
Henry’s man in Rome was a wily Italian diplomat named Gregorio Casali who drew no limits on skullduggery including kidnapping, bribery and theft to make his king a free man. In this absorbing narrative, winner of the Rome Fellowship prize and University of Durham historian Catherine Fletcher draws on hundreds of previously-unknown Italian archive documents to tell the colorful tale from the inside story inside the Vatican.
One of the most famous and tortured romances in history—between Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex— began in 1587, when she was 53 and he was 19. Their passionate affair continued for five years, until Essex was beheaded for treason in 1601.
In a fast-paced succession of brilliantly-rendered scenes, Lytton Strachey portrays Elizabeth and Essex's compelling attraction for each other, their impassioned disagreements, and their mutual struggle for power, which culminated so tragically—for both of them. Alongside the doomed love affair, Strachey pins colorful portraits of the leading characters and influential figures of the time: Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, Robert Cecil, and other members of her glittering court who fought to assert themselves in a kingdom and a country defined by Elizabeth's incomparable reign.
Strachey here illuminates, in spellbinding prose, one of the most poignant affairs in history alongside the glamour and intrigue of the Elizabethan era.
Awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Strachey's classic biography remains one of the best and most readable accounts of the Queen who defined an era
Lytton Strachey's acclaimed portrayal of Queen Victoria revolutionized the art of biography by using elements of romantic fiction and melodrama to create a warm, humorous, and very human portrait of this iconic figure.
We see Victoria as a strong-willed child with a famous temper, as the 18-year-old girl queen, as a monarch, wife, mother, and widow. Equally fascinating are the depictions of her relationships: with her governess“precious Lehzen,” with Peel, Gladstone, and Disraeli, with her beloved Albert, and, in later life, her legendary devotion to her Highland servant John Brown, all of which show a different side of the staid, pious image that is so often attached to her.
The complete history of every Imperial Roman legion and what it achieved as a fighting force, by an award-winning historian
In this landmark publication, Stephen Dando-Collins does what no other author has ever attempted to do: provide a complete history of every Imperial Roman legion. Based on thirty years of meticulous research, he covers every legion of Rome in rich detail. In the first part of the book, the author provides a detailed account of what the legionaries wore and ate, what camp life was like, what they were paid, and how they were motivated and punished. Part two examines the histories of all the legions that served Rome for three hundred years starting in 30 BC . The book’s final section is a sweeping chronological survey of the campaigns in which the armies were involved, told from the point of view of the legions. Featuring more than 150 maps, photographs, diagrams and battle plans, Legions of Rome is an essential read for ancient history enthusiasts, military history experts and general readers alike.
The Final Sacrament by James Forrester. UK release July 5, 2012.
September 1566. William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, lives quietly with his family in London, with a document in his possession that could destroy the state. The aged Lady Percy, Countess of Northumberland, has not given up trying to find it. Nor has she forgotten how he betrayed her and the Catholic cause - she has spent the last two years planning her revenge. But then eloquent and adventurous courtier, John Greystoke suddenly seems most concerned for Clarenceux's safety. And why, on behalf of the government, does Francis Walsingham have spies watching Clarenceux's house day and night? When his wife and his daughter go missing, Clarenceux finds himself on the run with his other young daughter, hunted by Lady Percy's agents. He knows he must finally destroy the document, even if it should cost him his life - but how can he, until he has reunited his family?
From the acclaimed biographer, an account of Elizabeth I focusing on her role in the Wars on Religion that tore apart Europe in the sixteenth century
Elizabeth’s 1558 coronation procession was met with an extravagant outpouring of love. Only twenty-five years old, the young queen saw herself as their Protestant savior; aiming to provide the nation with new hope, prosperity, and independence from the foreign influence that had plagued her sister Mary’s reign. Given the scars of the Reformation, Elizabeth would need all of the powers of diplomacy and tact she could summon. Extravagant, witty, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the ultimate tyrant. Yet at the outset, in religious matters, she was unfathomably tolerant for her day. “There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith,” Elizabeth once proclaimed. “All else is a dispute over trifles.” Heretic Queen is the highly personal, untold story of how Queen Elizabeth I secured the future of England as a world power. Susan Ronald paints the queen as a complex character whose apparent indecision was really a political tool that she wielded with great aplomb.
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