Widowed at the age of 19, she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her household for love, and then carved out a new life for herself.

    Instead of rotting in prison like she expected, she’s whisked away to the court of Queen Elizabeth and pressed into royal service, where she joins four other remarkable girls in the Maids of Honor, the Queen’s secret society of protectors.Meg’s natural abilities as a spy prove useful in this time of unrest. The Spanish Court is visiting, and with them come devious plots and hidden political motives. As threats to the kingdom begin to mount, Meg can’t deny her growing attraction to one of the dashing Spanish courtiers. But it’s hard to trust her heart in a place where royal formalities and masked balls hide the truth: Not everyone is who they appear to be. With danger lurking around every corner, can she stay alive—and protect the crown?

    King Harold of England, weakened by a ferocious Viking invasion from the north, could muster little defense. At the Battle of Hastings of October 14, he was outflanked, quickly defeated, and killed by William's superior troops. The course of English history was altered forever.Three years later, Walt, King Harold's only surviving bodyguard, is still emotionally and physically scarred by the loss of his king and his country. Wandering through Asia Minor, headed vaguely for the Holy Land, he meets Quint, a renegade monk with a healthy line of skepticism and a hearty appetite for knowledge. It is he who persuades Walt, little by little, to tell his extraordinary story.And so begins a roller-coaster ride into an era of enduring fascination. Weaving fiction round fact, Julian Rathbone brings to vibrant, exciting, and often amusing life the shadowy figures and events that preceded the Norman Conquest. We see Edward, confessing far more than he ever did in the history books. We meet the warring nobles of Mercia and Wessex; Harold and his unruly clan; Canute's descendants with their delusions of grandeur; predatory men, pushy women, subdued Scots , and wily Welsh. And we meet William of Normandy, a psychotic thug with interesting plans for the "racial sanitation" of the Euroskepics across the water.Peppered with discussions on philosophy. dentistry, democracy, devils, alcohol, illusions, and hygiene, The Last English King raises issues, both daring and delightful, that question the nature of history itself. Where are the lines between fact, interpretation, and re-creation? Did the French really stop for a two-hour lunch during the Battle of Hastings?

    Her hero is an ungainly young earl with a lowering brow and a taste for intrigue. He calls himself Thorfinn but his Christian name is Macbeth.Dunnett depicts Macbeth's transformation from an angry boy who refuses to accept his meager share of the Orkney Islands to a suavely accomplished warrior who seizes an empire with the help of a wife as shrewd and valiant as himself.

    A marriage surprisingly happy, with the king pouring wealth upon his young wife's relatives...incurring the wrath of the Barons. Eleanor, devoted mother, who fought the will of the monks to stay in a monastery and nurse her sick son, the future Edward I. Eleanor, caught in court intrigue, with the powerful, disturbing Baron, Simon de Montfort, looming at every turn--friend or foe? Or what else? Eleanor, attacked while on a barge passing under London Bridge, as the kingdom seems to slip away from her and Henry. Eleanor in victory, de Montfort slain at Evesham by her son's mighty forces. But there is a price to pay. Eleanor, a widow, seeking peace after so many years of strife, ending her days in Amesbury Priory in the shadow of Stonehenge, a convent thought in Eleanor's time to be the final refuge of Queen Guinevere, whose legends the queen had ever loved. Today, Eleanor of Provence is lost to time, one of the lesser known English Queens, her gravesite obliterated, its whereabouts forgotten—one of the few English monarchs to have no known tomb. MY FAIR LADY is first person novel written from the viewpoint of Eleanor herself. A woman’s look at her own Queenship and life and loves in the 13th century, at the time of the Second Barons Revolt.

    The printing press had yet to be invented, and books were rare and costly, painstakingly lettered by hand and illuminated with exquisite paintings. Finn is a master illuminator who works not only for the Church but also, in secret, for John Wycliffe of Oxford, who professes the radical idea that the Bible should be translated into English for everyone to read. Finn has another secret as well, one that leads him into danger when he meets Lady Kathryn of Blackingham Manor, a widow struggling to protect her inheritance from the depredations of Church and Crown alike. Finn's alliance with Lady Kathryn will take us to the heart of what Barbara Tuchman once called the calamitous fourteenth century.Richly detailed and irresistibly compelling, Brenda Rickman Vantrease's The Illuminator is a glorious story of love, art, religion, and treachery at an extraordinary turning point in history.

    For years, Isabella is a loyal wife, who repeatedly salvages her husband's kingship, even as she endures his neglect. When she finally speaks out against Edward's favorite, Lord Hugh Despenser, her income, lands and children are taken from her. In an age when women are not supposed to openly defy their husbands, Isabella vows to get her children back and have her revenge on Despenser - no matter what the cost.Imprisoned in the Tower of London for leading a rebellion against King Edward, Mortimer escapes with Isabella's help and finds refuge in the French court. But when Isabella arrives in Paris to negotiate a peace treaty, it is a temptation the ambitious Mortimer cannot resist.

    Damned by leprosy, he must bid his family a final and sorrowful farewell and leave his estates at Halton Castle forever. Condemned to shun the company of others, he must now find a place of solitude where he can seek forgiveness for sins committed in the Holy Land for which he is certain he has earned God’s curse. Resolved to live out his life as a hermit, he journeys north into the newly named county of Lancashire. But this is no arbitrary journey; there is one last obligation to be undertaken for his grandmother—he must seek out her kinsman, Sir Robert de Lacy, at Cliderhou Castle and there press his consideration of her claim to his estate. While at Halton, Richard’s headstrong 14-year-old sister Johanna is distraught. Her other brother, ruthless and ambitious Roger, has returned to take his place as head of the family. He and Johanna’s mother have contrived a marriage for her to a wealthy old landowner, and without Richard’s protection there seems little she can do about it—unless of course she can escape and find him.

    She will risk disgrace, the wrath of her family and the Church, and confront an evil older than Time itself--and, if she isn't careful, lose her immortal soul.With Death Comes As Epiphany, the first in the Catherine LeVendeur mystery series, medievalist Sharan Newman has woven dark mystery and sparkling romance into a fascinating and richly detailed tapestry of everyday life in twelfth-century France, and one of the most moving love stories of all time: Abelard and Heloise.

    a fallen queen sits waiting in the Tower of London, condemned to death by her husband. As Death looms before her, Anne Boleyn, second queen of Henry VIII looks back on her life...from the very beginning. Daughter of a courtier, servant to queens... she rose higher than any thought possible, and fell lower than any could imagine. Following the path of the young Mistress Boleyn, or La Petite Boulain, through the events of the first years of the reign of Henry VIII, to the glittering courts of Burgundy and France, Book One of "Above All Others; The Lady Anne" tracks the life of the young Lady Anne, showing how she became the scintillating woman who eventually, would capture the heart of a king. La Petite Boulain is the first book in the series "Above All Others; The Lady Anne" on the life of Anne Boleyn by G.Lawrence.

    In twelfth-century England, Matilda de Risle Dungesey, receives a gift from her new husband--a wartime hideaway in the Fens--from which she must fight for her land and her own life.

    Barnes' inimitable talent, in this deft and zestful re-creaton of England and the Middle East in the time of the Crusades. This is the story of the flamboyant Richard Coeur de Lion, and of the fortunes of the people caught up in his campaigns of love and war.

    Amid civil and private wars, alliances are forged, loyalties are betrayed, families are divided, and marriages are made. For four years, Lady Annyn Bretanne has trained at arms with one end in mind—to avenge her brother’s murder as God has not deemed it worthy to do. Disguised as a squire, she sets off to exact revenge on a man known only by his surname, Wulfrith. But when she holds his fate in her hands, her will wavers and her heart whispers that her enemy may not be an enemy after all. Baron Wulfrith, renowned trainer of knights, allows no women within his walls for the distraction they breed. What he never expects is that the impetuous young man sent to train under him is a woman who seeks his death—nor that her unveiling will test his faith and distract the warrior from his purpose.

    It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, when Lady Anna Maria Berezowska loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known. With Empress Catherine's Russian armies streaming in to take their spoils, Anna is quickly thrust into a world of love and hate, loyalty and deceit, patriotism and treason, life and death. Even kind Aunt Stella, Anna's new guardian who soon comes to personify Poland's courage and spirit, can't protect Anna from the uncertain future of the country. Anna, a child no longer, turns to love and comfort in the form of Jan, a brave patriot and architect of democracy, unaware that her beautiful and enigmatic cousin Zofia has already set her sights on the handsome young fighter. Thus Anna walks unwittingly into Zofia's jealous wrath and darkly sinister intentions. Forced to survive several tragic events, many of them orchestrated by the crafty Zofia, a strengthened Anna begins to learn to place herself in the way of destiny--for love and for country. Heeding the proud spirit of her late father, Anna becomes a major player in the fight against the countries who come to partition her beloved Poland. PUSH NOT THE RIVER is based on the true eighteenth century diary of Anna Maria Berezowska, a Polish countess who lived through the rise and fall of the historic Third of May Constitution. Vivid, romantic, and thrillingly paced, it paints the emotional and unforgettable story of the metamorphosis of a nation--and of a proud and resilient young woman.

    Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later to become King Richard III, takes possession of the castle upon his marriage to a wealthy heiress but this does nothing to diminish the love Christiana has for him. She bears the duke an illegitimate son and against all odds continues to live and work as a servant within the castle walls. Christiana’s devotion spans twenty four years and follows Richard’s fortunes from the north of England to the battlefields of the Wars of the Roses and his ultimate death. Christiana’s story does not end with the death of the king and she finds it within herself to carry on despite being a woman alone and destitute until she eventually finds the love and happiness that had always existed but never acknowledged. Based upon historical fact and recent new evidence that has come to light since the discovery of the mortal remains of Richard III this is a story that weaves a rich tapestry of life in Medieval England and portrays the much-maligned figure of King Richard in a more favourable light.