In the fourth installment of the Giordano Bruno series, Treachery, Sir Francis Drake is still basking in the glory of being the first person to circumnavigate the globe. It is August 1585 and he is preparing for another sea voyage, which this time will take him to the New World via the coast of Spain,... Continue Reading →
Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon
Ariel Lawhon's historical novel Flight of Dreams imagines the lives of the Hindenburg passengers in the final days before the epic disaster that destroyed the airship. The history is well-known: in the 1930s, the world's aviation industry was rapidly changing and expanding into intercontinental passenger travel, and nothing was a greater symbol of those ambitions that the... Continue Reading →
Midnight Fire, A Jagiellon Mystery #2 coming in September 2020
In the summer of 1545, Caterina Konarska undertakes the long journey from Bari to Kraków in search of a cure for her ailing son Giulio. In Poland, she finds a court far different from the lively, cultured place she remembers from twenty-five years ago. The old king lies on his deathbed, and the once-charming Queen... Continue Reading →
Excerpt from The Merchant’s Tale
Chapter 1 St. Nicholas Monastery, Nyonoksa, Russia August 24, 1553 by P.K. Adams and C.P. Lesley So close to the Arctic, dawn flushed the skies with pink despite the early hour. A blessed silence descended as the monks finished yet another round of prayers, chanted in Slavonic to the accompaniment of bells, and returned to... Continue Reading →
5 Ways COVID-19 Will Impact the Publishing Industry
Guest post by Desiree Villena It’s been half a year since the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency following the appearance of a novel coronavirus. Since then, COVID-19 has profoundly changed how we live and how we work — and the publishing industry is no exception. The book trade might be stereotyped as sluggish and... Continue Reading →
The Arrival of Barbara Radziwiłł
Excerpt from Midnight Fire, Jagiellon Mystery #2 Increasingly bored, I was about to turn to Maria, when the volume of conversations suddenly abated and heads turned toward one corner of the hall. A sense of anticipation filled the air, as if the gathering awaited the beginning of a performance by a troupe of players, lowering... Continue Reading →
Silence in the Woods by J.P. Choquette
As a new Vermonter, I'm fascinated by local folktales. None are more popular here than those telling of the possible existence of Bigfoot, a hairy, ape-like creature that is said to dwell in the wilderness. J.P. Choquette's Silence In the Woods is the first in the Monsters in the Green Mountains series that centers around... Continue Reading →
The Borgia Confessions by Alyssa Palombo
The Borgia dynasty of Renaissance Rome continues to fascinate 500 years later. Much has been written about them - fiction and non-fiction alike - but The Borgia Confessions offers a rare perspective - that of a servant to the famous papal family. Maddalena Moretti is a young widow from the rural Romagna region who arrives in Rome in... Continue Reading →
Whiskey When We’re Dry by John Larison
An absorbing and fast-paced western, Whiskey When We're Dry begins in the spring 1885 when seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney leaves her homestead and sets out across the mountains in search of her outlaw brother Noah. Alone after her father's death, Jessilyn decides that the only way to keep starvation and rapacious neighbors at bay is to... Continue Reading →
The Witch’s Trinity by Erika Mailman
The Witch's Trinity spent a good couple of years on my TBR list, and I am so glad I finally got to it. Transporting the reader into late medieval Germany, it tackles the fascinating and terrifying topic of witch trials and the social, economic and religious structures that made them possible. During the winter of... Continue Reading →