History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas Author: Alison Weir Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography Publisher: Ballantine Books Release Date: January 12, 2016 Pages: 576 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: From New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir comes the first biography of Margaret Douglas, the beautiful, cunning niece of Henry VIII of England who used her sharp intelligence and covert power to influence the succession after the death of Elizabeth I.      Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Her mother was a queen, her father an earl, and she herself was the granddaughter, niece, cousin, and grandmother of monarchs. Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was an important figure in Tudor England, yet today, while her contemporaries—Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I—have achieved celebrity status, she is largely forgotten.       Margaret’s ...

The Void of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood #3) Author: Jeff Wheeler Genre: YA, Fantasy Publisher: 47North Release Date: 2015 Pages: 432 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: When banished Princess Maia is captured by her father and threatened with execution, it appears that all is lost…until the people rise in rebellion against their king. Suddenly, the cast-aside royal finds herself crowned the first Queen of Comoros. But enemies appear on all sides as her father’s conniving supporters assemble a new army against the fledgling ruler. While Maia struggles to keep the peace within her own walls, she rushes to form historical alliances with her neighboring kingdoms against an impending invasion of the ruthless Naestors—led by the cruel Corriveaux—who will destroy anyone Maia loves in order to ruin her kingdom and prevent the mastons from regaining power.      Realizing that Muirwood Abbey is once again her only hope for survival, M...

The Ciphers of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood #2) Author: Jeff Wheeler Genre: YA, Fantasy Publisher: 47North Release Date: 2015 Pages: 400 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: From the moment she was banished by her father, the king, Princess Maia journeyed to seek sanctuary at Muirwood Abbey, the epicenter of magic and good in the land. Now safe for the first time since her cruel abandonment, Maia must foster uneasy friendships with other girls training to be Ciphers: women who learn to read and engrave tomes of ancient power, despite the laws forbidding them to do so. As Maia tries to judge whom to trust, she makes a shocking discovery: her destiny is to open the Apse Veil and release trapped spirits from her world. Then she learns that her father is coming to Muirwood Abbey to celebrate the Whitsunday festival—and Maia’s estranged husband, whom she was forced to abandon, will join him. Torn between deadly political machinations and unstop...

The Confessions of X Author: Suzanne M. Wolfe Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Publisher: Thomas Nelson Release Date: January 26, 2016 Pages: 304 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: Before he became a father of the Christian Church, Augustine of Hippo loved a woman whose name has been lost to history. This is her story.      She met Augustine in Carthage when she was seventeen. She was the poor daughter of a mosaic-layer; he was a promising student and heir to a fortune. His brilliance and passion intoxicated her, but his social class would be forever beyond her reach. She became his concubine, and by the time he was forced to leave her, she was thirty years old and the mother of his son. And his Confessions show us that he never forgot her. She was the only woman he ever loved.      In a society in which classes rarely mingle on equal terms, and an unwed mother can lose her son to the burgeoning career of he...

Louise's Chance: A 1940s Spy Thriller Set in Wartime Washington (A Louise Pearlie Mystery) Author: Sarah R. Shaber Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller Publisher: Severn House Release Date: 2015 Pages: 192 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: 1940s, Washington DC. Government girl Louise gets her big chance, when she is tasked with recruiting German POWs for a secret mission inside Nazi Germany      Government girl Louise Pearlie has a new job inside the OSS – the Office of Strategic Services: recruiting German prisoners-of-war for a secret mission inside Nazi Germany. It’s a big chance for her, and Louise hopes she can finally escape her filing and typing duties. With the job comes two new colleagues: Alice Osborne, a propaganda expert, and Merle Ellison, a forger from Texas who just happens to speak fluent German.       But when the three arrive at Fort Meade camp, to interview the first German POWs to ...

The Determined Heart: The Tale of Mary Shelley and Her Frankenstein Author: Antoinette May Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: Lake Union Publishing Release Date: 2015 Pages: 412 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: The Determined Heart reveals the life of Mary Shelley in a story of love and obsession, betrayal and redemption.      The daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley had an unconventional childhood populated with the most talented and eccentric personalities of the time. After losing her mother at an early age, she finds herself in constant conflict with a resentful stepmother and a jealous stepsister. When she meets the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, she falls deeply in love, and they elope with disastrous consequences. Soon she finds herself destitute and embroiled in a torturous love triangle as Percy takes Mary’s stepsister as a lover. Over the next severa...

Ophelia’s Muse Author: Rita Cameron Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: Kensington Release Date: 2015 Pages: 416 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: "I'll never want to draw anyone else but you. You are my muse. Without you there is no art in me."       With her pale, luminous skin and cloud of copper-colored hair, nineteen-year-old Lizzie Siddal looks nothing like the rosy-cheeked ideal of Victorian beauty. Working in a London milliner's shop, Lizzie stitches elegant bonnets destined for wealthier young women, until a chance meeting brings her to the attention of painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Enchanted both by her ethereal appearance and her artistic ambitions--quite out of place for a shop girl--Rossetti draws her into his glittering world of salons and bohemian soirees.       Lizzie begins to sit for some of the most celebrated members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, posing for John ...