“Intimacy amidst the giants”– Stephanie Dray’s novel about Selene, Cleopatra’s daughter, set during the Augustan Age, ranges between Rome and the kingdom of Mauretania in northern Africa. My review published in the New York Journal of Books.
Priscilla Royal’s latest mystery finds Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas on a pilgrimage to Walsingham to mend Eleanor’s troubled soul. Royal takes on the notion of self-righteous religiosity that’s used to cover personal failings and sins. She also deals with a more subtle theme that she’s explored before—how to live true to oneself when who you are is rejected by your world.
At age fifteen in 1002, Emma came from Normandy to marry the much older King Aethelred. Bracewell brings back to life this often forgotten English queen through Viking invasions and jealous rivalries.
The Chalice follows Joanna Stafford after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries out into the secular world and into a complex conspiracy against the crown, involving mysterious prophecies, spies and danger for the people Joanna loves most.
The Golden Dice is the second novel in Storr’s series about the Etruscans and their conflicts with the Romans during the early period of Roman history. Vel Mastarna, the general of Etruscan Veii and his Roman wife, Caecilia, strive to overcome both the Roman army and those enemies inside Veii who would gladly destroy them. Through three female narrators we see Roman and Etruscan life and motives from both ends of the social stratum.
Renaissance food in yummy detail, a sophisticated, lascivious pope and his gorgeous (not to mention smart and courageous) concubine, murders reflecting some fascinating if sick mental states, an ornery but lovable dwarf, a mummified saint’s hand with strong opinions—what is not to like about Kate Quinn’s foray into the world of the Borgias?
Jessica McCann builds an emotionally engaging, heartbreaking story out of a fundamentally unfair situation in American history. A free Black woman, Margaret Morgan, and her three children are kidnapped in 1837 from their home in Pennsylvania and sold into slavery.
The fifteenth Inspector Rutledge mystery will not disappoint Todd fans and should encourage new readers. The plot, set between 1916-1920, takes us to Madeira and throughout England as Rutledge tries to track down an elusive murderer. Even the victims are elusive.
The Trojan War: A Very Short History is an up to date (2013) summary of the evidence for a Trojan War by excellent scholar Eric Cline.
Tim Leach has taken the Greek legend of Croesus, the extravagantly rich king of Lydia whose river, the Pactolus, flowed with gold, and retold it in a smart, meaning-laden manner that I enjoyed. This is a book that pursues the big philosophical questions.
