Posted Friday, 9 September, 2016 by jorielov Allium Press of Chicago, Anna Lee Huber, Aunt Dimity series, Bess Crawford mysteries, Coffeehouse mysteries, Death at the Paris Exposition, Deeanne Gist, Emily Cabot Mysteries, Frances McNamara, Lady Darby Mysteries 0 Comments
Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! I received a complimentary copy of “Death at the Paris Exposition” direct from the author Frances McNamara in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
The reason why I wanted to read a new Cosy Historical Mystery series:
Hallo, dear hearted readers – My interest in reading this book is multi-layered to be honest! My grandparents attended the World’s Fair in Chicago in the early 20th Century (see also this article), and had passed down their memories and enthusiasm about attending the event at young ages. I was equally fascinated by World Fairs for as long as I can remember – as I learnt of them in a joint (class) discussion between my Science & History studies in middle school. To attend an event like that and see first-hand the innovation and invention arriving new to the world – had to be immediately awe-inspiring! This fond fascination of my own, predated my knowledge of my grandparents attendance! On the same vein of thought, my favourite bits of Epcot to visit as a child were Innoventions, Journey into Imagination with Figment, World of Motion, Universe of Energy and of course I loved Tomorrowland at Disney! Lest I mention how much I loved Robin Williams exhibit as his character came alive in Tomorrowland as “the Timekeeper”!
I have always marvelled at innovations – to be on the brink of something radically dynamic and new to shape the tomorrows of the future has always endeared my curiosity and enriched my imagination! How could it not!?
I have wanted to seek out literature about the Fairs for a long while. Further encouraged when I attended the BookTalk Nation chat (between readers & writers – BookTalk Nation was a wicked pro-positive event encouraging book discussions openly between the bookish!) with Deeanne Gist! She was releasing her own novel at the time about the Chicago World’s Fair: It Happened at the Fair! She revealled that the inspiration for “The Wizard of Oz” was tied to the same fair – imagine!? I am still a few releases behind this one in my readings of her stories, but I have happily earmarked this one to read once I arrive back inside my readings! There are other one-offs and series I’d love to seek out inasmuch as non-fiction releases that might talk about the World Fairs & Expositions in greater scope – as it’s simply a topic of living history I love uncovering!
Counter-current to this interest is my on-going passion and pursuit of finding Cosy Historical Mysteries – not entirely focused on one-offs necessarily, as I much prefer the breadth of serial fiction – I wanted to take a chance on the Emily Cabot Mysteries all the same! At the time when I signed up to participate in the tour – I had fully intended to borrow the first book in the series – Death at the Fair – via inter-library loan! However, this Summer I had my hands full dealing with tech issues, connectivity difficulties, an ant invasion and enough lightning storms to wish I lived somewhere that had more blizzards than lightning; snow I can handle! Lightning? Oy vie.
Similar to how I entered the Coffeehouse Mysteries (by Cleo Coyle) and the Bess Crawford Mysteries (by Charles Todd) – so too, is my entrance a bit of field of sequence with the Emily Cabot Mysteries! I rarely brake a series order – by sometimes life has a way of interrupting your plans! To say I was most eager to meet my next spunky female sleuth would be putting it mildly, dear hearts! Oh! Reading mysteries is as regenerative as a cuppa of tea!
Death at the Paris Exposition
Subtitle: An Emily Cabot Mystery
Amateur sleuth Emily Cabot’s journey once again takes her to a world’s fair–the Paris Exposition of 1900. Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer is named the only female U. S. commissioner to the Exposition and enlists Emily’s services as her secretary.
Their visit to the House of Worth for the fitting of a couture gown is interrupted by the theft of Mrs. Palmer’s famous pearl necklace. Before that crime can be solved, several young women meet untimely deaths and a member of the Palmer’s inner circle is accused of the crimes.
As Emily races to clear the family name she encounters jealous society ladies, American heiresses seeking titled European husbands, and more luscious gowns and priceless jewels. Along the way, she takes refuge from the tumult at the country estate of Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. In between her work and sleuthing, she is able to share the Art Nouveau delights of the Exposition, and the enduring pleasures of the City of Light with her family.
Places to find the book:
Borrow from a Public Library
Add to LibraryThing
Find on Book Browse
ISBN: 9780996755832
on 1st September, 2016
Pages: 278
Published By: Allium Press of Chicago (@alliumpress)
Author’s page on Allium Press of Chicago
The Emily Cabot Mysteries:
Death at the Fair | No. 1 | Synopsis
Death at Hull House | No. 2 | Synopsis
Death at Pullman | No. 3| Synopsis
Death at Woods Hole | No. 4 | Synopsis
Death at Chinatown | No. 5 | Synopsis
Death at the Paris Exposition | No. 6 | this review!
Converse via: #HistoricalMystery, #HistMyst, #CosyMystery + #HistFic
Available Formats: Paperback and E-Book
About Frances McNamara
Frances McNamara grew up in Boston, where her father served as Police Commissioner for ten years. She has degrees from Mount Holyoke and Simmons Colleges, and formerly worked as a librarian at the University of Chicago. When not working or writing she can be found sailing on the Charles River in Boston or beaching on Cape Cod.
Website | Blog | Facebook | Goodreads | LibraryThing
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2016 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Posted Friday, 9 September, 2016 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, 20th Century, Amateur Detective, Art History, Based on an Actual Event &/or Court Case, Berta Honore Palmer, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, France, French Literature, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Historical Mystery, Indie Author, Lady Detective Fiction, Local Libraries | Research Libraries, Mary Cassatt, Passionate Researcher, Sociological Behavior, the Nineteen Hundreds
Posted Tuesday, 30 August, 2016 by jorielov Hiro Hattori Novels, Prometheus Books, Seventh Street Books, Susan Spann, The Ninja's Daughter 4 Comments
Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
I’m wicked happy bringing you a conversation I had recently with Ms Spann – the author of my beloved Cosy Historical Mysteries: the Hiro Hattori Novels, set in 16th Century Japan! For booklovers who have an appreciation of Japanese culture and tradition, this is a special treat to your readerly wanderings, as Ms Spann has a tenacious focus on maintaining authentic historical layers of insight & intrigue within her wickedly crafted mysteries!
The pleasure for me has been following her series since the second novel released whilst back-reading the debut! I have had the joy of following alongside Hiro & Father Mateo as they journey towards seeking out justice & truth in an age where secrecy ruled more in favour of conspiracies than honest revelations of what happened. The two are a duo of sleuths, each utilising their own personal approach to rooting out the truth from those who would seek to obliterate it from being discovered, striking a beautiful balance inside a friendship built on a foundation of trust & honour.
I love how through each new volume, the setting expands outward to encompass more of Japan and Japanese culture! This is visually an impressive series but it’s how through compassion and trans-culture awareness Spann stitches together a series that is more than a ‘Historical Mystery’ it’s a guiding map towards opening our own awareness of a culture we might not have had the pleasure of studying or knowing in such an inter-personal way as we do now!
As you will see in our conversation, Ms Spann has the joy of visiting Japan on yearly adventures wherein she curates research with a physical presence of seeing the cross-section of Ancient & Modern Japan. I am hoping you are as moved by her recollections and photographs of this beautiful country as I was myself! Whilst enthralled to find out a few ‘hintings’ of joy about what is coming to our bookish hearts *July 2017!*
Brew yourself a cuppa & enjoy the convo!
Why I love reading the Hiro Hattori Novels:
Ms Spann keeps you keenly invested in being aware of not only the current plot thickening before your eyes, but the concurrent story-lines which came prior to the one your reading! You have to keep observant and the wicked challenge is piecing all the lovely clues together which add into the depth of where the series is grounded. I love finding an author whose symmetry for carrying a series forward is never overshadowed by an installment but rather brightened by how all the stories within the series broaden the appeal of how far reaching the series has become! It’s a special treat, as you get to dig deeper into the background of where the Hiro Hattori novels are set and how everything is fused together properly through the characters who populate the series directly. -quoted from my review of The Ninja’s Daughter
book synopsis:
Autumn, 1565: When an actor’s daughter is murdered on the banks of Kyoto’s Kamo River, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo are the victim’s only hope for justice.
As political tensions rise in the wake of the shogun’s recent death, and rival warlords threaten war, the Kyoto police forbid an investigation of the killing, to keep the peace–but Hiro has a personal connection to the girl, and must avenge her. The secret investigation leads Hiro and Father Mateo deep into the exclusive world of Kyoto’s theater guilds, where they quickly learn that nothing, and no one, is as it seems. With only a mysterious golden coin to guide them, the investigators uncover a forbidden love affair, a missing mask, and a dangerous link to corruption within the Kyoto police department that leaves Hiro and Father Mateo running for their lives.
On my connection to Susan Spann:
I started visiting the chats hosted by @LitChat in the latter months of 2013, as it was around the time of the conference at The Betsy in which I started to cross paths with regular chatters, amongst whom were Natalia Sylvester (début novelist of “Chasing the Sun”) and Susan Spann. I am unsure which month I first started to notice Ms. Spann as a friendly presence who always reminded me of myself — someone who provided cheerful commentary, engaging questions for each visiting guest author, and a wicked knowledge base on a variety of topics. Generally speaking, I always click-over to read a person’s Twitter profile, but whilst engaged in those #LitChat(s) I felt like it was this magical rendezvous for the bookish and those who are attuned to bookish culture.
In this way, it wasn’t until I learnt of Blade of the Samurai was going on a blog tour that I decided to discover a bit more about her! In so doing, I learnt who she was ‘behind the curtain’ so to speak! I always considered her one of my ‘friends in the twitterverse’ but I never disclosed this to her until I was on the (Blade of the Samurai) blog tour in September 2014! Such serendipity as the tour brought us a bit closer and I am grateful that Twitter is a social-positive method of reaching past our distances in geography to connect to people who share a passion for the written word. We have continued to remain in touch although we do not get to ‘meet-up’ on Twitter as often as we once did due to our schedules in recent years.
I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Ms Spann through our respective love & passion of reading inside the twitterverse whilst attending #LitChat or in private convos. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author, whether I am reading a book by them for the first time or continuing to read their series in sequence of publication.
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Posted Tuesday, 30 August, 2016 by jorielov in 16th Century, Blog Tour Host, Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Historical Mystery, Japan, Japanese Fiction, Japanese History, Multi-cultural Characters and/or Honest Representations of Ethnicity, Reader Submitted Author Interview
Posted Friday, 26 August, 2016 by jorielov Lawson Gartner Publishing, Madame Presidentess, Nicole Evelina 0 Comments
Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! I received a complimentary copy of “Madame Presidentess” direct from the author Nicole Evelina in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I appreciate reading Nicole Evelina’s Historicals:
I appreciate the extra care and attention Evelina goes too in being openly transparent with her readers – not only about the inclusions of what she is writing into the backbone of her sequel for Camelot but for why she’s finding the choices she’s made are backed up by the research and the lore left behind for her to find to inspire her writing as a whole. It helps not only understand the time-line but how the time-line affects the events and how through digging deeper into the lore and legends of Camelot you can root out strongly wrought conflict and afflictions that can affect any woman of any age. Evelina isn’t an author who shies away from harder subjects and topics, but rather meets them head-on and tries to assert her feelings on the events in a manner that is welcoming to her readers. She puts her heart on the line and owns the truth of her words as her pen inks out her stories.
It’s this attention to both detail and sensitivities of readers, wherein I felt I might appreciate reading her next historical release Madame Presidentess (read about the book on her author’s site) after having first met her title character Victoria Woodhull through my readings of The Renegade Queen (see my review); where I first began my journey into a new vein of interest for #HistFic – the Feminist driven side of Historical Fiction! I was quite grateful for the introduction (as it was soon followed by Emmy Nation (see my review) and my first introduction into Evelina’s writing via Daughter of Destiny.
The reason I felt I might find myself a bit more smitten to read Evelina’s version of Woodhull’s story is because I was very much challenged by how Flynn portrayed those harder scenes and the way in which Woodhull’s earlier life was fused to the novel. I survived the text and I was genuinely curious about the sequel by Flynn, but part of me wondered if the story could have found a softer edging – thus, imagine my joy in finding Evelina has penned a different take on the same tale! I bring up Victoria Woodhull because she shares a thread of connection with the Guinevere your meeting inside Camelot’s Queen; both women are brutally attacked and suffer aftereffects of how men treated them. Sometimes tempering the hardest and most challenging of scenes or memories of a character fit better with my own sensitive heart than the ones that breach my own level of tolerance.
–quoted from my review of Camelot’s Queen
Madame Presidentess
by Nicole Evelina
Illustrator/Cover Designer: Jenny Quinlan (JennyQ)
Source: Author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
*Winner: U.S. Women’s History category – 2015 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction
Forty-eight years before women were granted the right to vote, one woman dared to run for President of the United States, yet her name has been virtually written out of the history books.
Rising from the shame of an abusive childhood, Victoria Woodhull, the daughter of a con-man and a religious zealot, vows to follow her destiny, one the spirits say will lead her out of poverty to “become ruler of her people.”
But the road to glory is far from easy. A nightmarish marriage teaches Victoria that women are stronger and deserve far more credit than society gives. Eschewing the conventions of her day, she strikes out on her own to improve herself and the lot of American women.
Over the next several years, she sets into motion plans that shatter the old boys club of Wall Street and defile even the sanctity of the halls of Congress. But it’s not just her ambition that threatens men of wealth and privilege; when she announces her candidacy for President in the 1872 election, they realize she may well usurp the power they’ve so long fought to protect.
Those who support her laud “Notorious Victoria” as a gifted spiritualist medium and healer, a talented financial mind, a fresh voice in the suffrage movement, and the radical idealist needed to move the nation forward. But those who dislike her see a dangerous force who is too willing to speak out when women are expected to be quiet. Ultimately, “Mrs. Satan’s” radical views on women’s rights, equality of the sexes, free love and the role of politics in private affairs collide with her tumultuous personal life to endanger all she has built and change how she is viewed by future generations.
This is the story of one woman who was ahead of her time – a woman who would make waves even in the 21st century – but who dared to speak out and challenge the conventions of post-Civil War America, setting a precedent that is still followed by female politicians today.
Genres: Biographical Fiction, Feminist Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Women's Studies Places to find the book:
Add to LibraryThing
ISBN: 9780996763196
Also by this author: Daughter of Destiny, Nicole Evelina (Guest Post: Camelot's Queen), Camelot's Queen, Been Searching For You, Mistress of Legend
Published by Lawson Gartner Publishing
on 25th July, 2016
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 400
About Nicole Evelina
Nicole Evelina is an award-winning historical fiction and romantic comedy writer. Her current novel, Been Searching for You, a romantic comedy, won the 2015 Romance Writers of America (RWA) Great Expectations and Golden Rose contests.
She also writes historical fiction. Her debut novel, Daughter of Destiny, the first book of an Arthurian legend trilogy that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view, took first place in the legend/legacy category of the 2015 Chatelaine Awards for Women’s Fiction/Romance, and was short-listed for the Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction. Later this year (2016), she will release Madame Presidentess (July 25), a historical novel about Victoria Woodhull, America's first female Presidential candidate, which was the first place winner in the Women’s US History category of the 2015 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.
Nicole is one of only six authors who completed a week-long writing intensive taught by #1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Harkness. Nicole has traveled to England twice to research the Guinevere’s Tale trilogy, where she consulted with internationally acclaimed author and historian Geoffrey Ashe, as well as Arthurian/Glastonbury expert Jaime George, the man who helped Marion Zimmer Bradley research The Mists of Avalon.
Nicole is a member of and book reviewer for the The Historical Novel Society, and Sirens (a group supporting female fantasy authors), as well as a member of the Historical Writers of America, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Romance Writers of America, the St. Louis Writer’s Guild, Women Writing the West, Broad Universe (promoting women in fantasy, science fiction and horror), Alliance of Independent Authors and the Independent Book Publishers Association.
Author biography was updated July 2016.
Website | Blog | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram | Pinterest | Tumblr | LibraryThing | YouTube
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2016 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Posted Friday, 26 August, 2016 by jorielov in 19th Century, Based on an Actual Event &/or Court Case, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Disillusionment in Marriage, Domestic Violence, Flashbacks & Recollective Memories, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Indie Author, Kidnapping or Unexplained Disappearances, Loss of an unbourne child, Marriage of Convenience, Midwives & Childbirth, Passionate Researcher, Political Narrative & Modern Topics, Psychological Abuse, PTSD, Realistic Fiction, Superstitions & Old World Beliefs, Trauma | Abuse & Recovery, Victoria Woodhull, Vulgarity in Literature, Women's Fiction, Women's Health, Women's Rights, Women's Suffrage
Posted Wednesday, 24 August, 2016 by jorielov Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Mary Sharratt, The Dark Lady's Mask 0 Comments
Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! I received a complimentary copy of “The Dark Lady’s Mask” direct from the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I wanted to read this novel about William Shakespeare:
Ahead of sharing my love of Shakespeare, I am celebrating the return of being able to read a novel of Mary Sharratt for review on Jorie Loves A Story! Whilst I was a 1st Year Book Blogger (observed my 3rd blog birthday earlier this month on the 6th of August), I had the pleasure of joy reading Illuminations: {A novel of Hildegard von Bingen} as my debut review for Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours in November, 2013! The novel introduced me to an enriched version of reading biographies – an introduction that would carry me forward into the wonderful world of what I refer to as ‘Biographical Historical Fiction’; a mainstay of my reading queues! As routed through this category of interest!
From that foundation, I started to seek out traditional biographies and memoirs, under the new vein of interest called ‘Creative Non-Fiction’ where the stories are threaded through an emotional contextual core of narrative. For you see, if I hadn’t first read Illuminations all the lovelies I’ve been discovering since might not have alighted in my hands to read. Mary Sharratt truly opened my mind and eyes to how a story could be told whilst peering back into the historical past through a living history of a person who once lived. Her style of the craft is quite acutely realistic for the time periods she’s exploring; she has a conviction of setting with a lifeblood of drawing characters out of the wells of history to give us a resounding portrait of ‘who once lived’ can live once again in our own imaginations.
You see, I fell in love with reading Shakespeare when I was fourteen; prior to that year, (as a freshman in high school) I knew of the Bard far more than I had read his works. I was smitten by the idea of what a Shakespearean play would contain but I had not started reading his works until it became required reading. Ironic, no? Of those readings (Romeo & Juliet & Julius Caesar), it was my readings of Caesar that staid with me the most! I liked the tenacity of the piece and the guttingly humanistic emotional tides ebbing in and out of the realisation of how the conspirators befell a leader. There was such a lot of dramatic eclipse in that back-story, I daresay, right then and there, I should have realised how much I would come to appreciate reading Historical Fiction! If only hindsight were available,..
I was gifted a portable collection of Shakespeare’s works for my four and twenty birthday, a fact that isn’t lost on me now that I’m in the latter years of my twentytens; of which selections of plausible readings are listed on my own Classics Club List where they lie in wait for me to soak inside their stories. It isn’t that I have balked at reading more Shakespeare, it’s the mere fact I simply haven’t felt in ‘the mood’ to re-enter his works. There are moments where I distinctively feel literature is based on our moods; this clearly is one of them! Another example would be my distance from the ghost stories of Heather Graham; for me, those require a certain atmosphere to enjoy (i.e. thunderstorms).
As so much has become disputed and/or proved in regards to Shakespeare’s legacy and identity, I felt it was proper time to delve into a portion of the history surrounding him I haven’t yet learnt of first-hand. This is where reading Biographical HistFic is especially fun for me! I get to tuck inside the research and the visionary plausibilities of where known fact and supposition reside to paint an image of ‘what could have been’ and very much could honestly be the living testament of a person who lived so very long ago!
The Dark Lady's Mask
Shakespeare in Love meets Shakespeare’s Sister in this novel of England’s first professional woman poet and her collaboration and love affair with William Shakespeare.
London, 1593. Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy, but a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything.
Aemilia grabs at the chance to pursue her long-held dream of writing and the two outsiders strike up a literary bargain. They leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country — and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last and their collaborative affair comes to a devastating end. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense and in defense of all women.
The Dark Lady’s Mask gives voice to a real Renaissance woman in every sense of the word.
Places to find the book:
Borrow from a Public Library
Add to LibraryThing
Find on Book Browse
ISBN: 9780544300767
on 19th April, 2016
Pages: 416
Published By: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (@HMHCo)
Converse via: #TheDarkLadysMask, #Shakespeare + #HistFic
Available Formats: Hardcover, Trade Paperback & Ebook
Read about Aemilia Bassano Lanier via Poetry Foundation
Read Ms Sharratt’s blog post about The Dark Lady’s Mask via Feminism & Religion
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2016 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Posted Wednesday, 24 August, 2016 by jorielov in 16th Century, Aemilia Bassano Lanier, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, British Literature, Classical Literature, England, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Historical Mystery, Historical Romance, Inspired By Author OR Book, Inspired by Stories, William Shakespeare
Posted Saturday, 13 August, 2016 by jorielov CreateSpace Independent Publishing, Elizabeth St. John, Self Published, The Lady of the Tower 2 Comments
Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! I received a complimentary copy of “The Lady of the Tower” direct from the author Elizabeth St. John in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I wanted to read a story writ out of the author’s historical past:
Hallo, dear hearted readers – I was especially keen on the idea of a historical fiction novel inspired by the ancestral history of the author’s past because I am an Ancestry Sleuth myself! I have had a penchant of following in the footsteps of my Mum and grandfather who originally started to ferret out the remnants of our ancestry past through the groundwork they started in the 1970s to not only unearth hidden threads of our ancestors but to start the quest to work towards understanding where we all originated once you enter into the historical data on immigration from the UK and Europe respectively.
It’s an interesting process, as an Ancestry Sleuth as your digging through records and following leads – where some days you come up empty and other days, you might get a lucky break – where finding one ancestor could lead you to find a whole lot of ancestors you never even heard about previously! Thus, knowing this about how much I love researching where the living histories of my family could lead to new ancestors in the historic past, imagine then, my joy in reading the synopsis and back-story attached to The Lady of the Tower, wherein Ms St. John used one of her ancestors as the cornerstone of enquiry into how her story was both set and told.
I could be mistaken, but I believe the Stuart period of England is one that I haven’t yet had the joy of exploring? I love when I get to dig into another chapter of British history, seeing a whole generation pop alive against the pages of a historical novel and give me a cardinal viewing of that generation’s untold insights & stories. I remember when I first read a novel set during the era of the Tudors & the Georgian era, too. Of the two, I leaned more towards the Tudors – however, I have the tendency to fall back on my regular haunts of the Regency & Victorian eras whilst traversing a bit into the Edwardian. It would be quite lovely to feel an equal attachment for another era – perhaps, the Stuart will appeal? I do appreciate certain stories set during Elizabethan England, too. It’s just my heart flutters such joy in the other three eras it’s hard to pull myself out of them! Laughs.
The Lady of the Tower
Orphaned Lucy St.John, described as “the most beautiful of all,” defies English society by carving her own path through the decadent Stuart court. In 1609, the early days of the rule of James I are a time of glittering pageantry and cutthroat ambition, when the most dangerous thing one can do is fall in love . . . or make an enemy of Frances Howard, the reigning court beauty.
Lucy catches the eye of the Earl of Suffolk, but her envious sister Barbara is determined to ruin her happiness. Exiling herself from the court, Lucy has to find her own path through life, becoming mistress of the Tower of London. Riding the coattails of the king’s favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, the fortunes of the St.Johns rise to dizzying heights. But with great wealth comes betrayal, leaving Lucy to fight for her survival—and her honor—in a world of deceit and debauchery.
Elizabeth St.John tells this dramatic story of love, betrayal, family bonds and loyalty through the eyes of her ancestor Lucy and her family’s surviving diaries, letters and court papers.
Places to find the book:
Add to LibraryThing
ISBN: 9781523417889
on 30th January, 2016
Pages: 246
Published By: Self-Published Author
Read more about the Stuart period of England via WikiHow
Converse via: #TheLadyOfTheTower & #Ancestry + #HistFic
Available Formats: Softcover paperback and E-Book
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2016 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Posted Saturday, 13 August, 2016 by jorielov in 17th Century, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Historical Mystery, Historical Romance, Historical Thriller Suspense, Lucy St. John, Multi-Generational Saga, Story knitted out of Ancestral Data
