Sunday Notables

Romance News:

Chapter Two of A Duke for All Seasons by Emily Bryan has been posted. Emily is writing a romance novel with a chapter each month and a chance to vote on what happens next (and win a prize) on her site.

Definitely, Maybe by Heather Webber (Truly, Madly) at She Loves Hot Reads - a short story that explains how Lucy Valentine ended up with the power to find things by touch (more or less). I really enjoyed Truly, Madly (review soon), so this was a nice bonus!

Ooh, segue involving psychic phenomena? I'm looking forward to Fox's Past Life (premieres Feb 9th on FOX inspired by The Reincarnationist and sequels by M.J. Rose. Does anyone else think this looks fun? If you want to read the books that inspired the show, the author has a free sampler of each of the three novels if you sign up for her newsletter.

YA News:

In even more psychic phenomena news, Harper Collins has posted the first few chapters of The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting if you'd like to give them a try. The story is about Violet, a girl who hears the souls of the dead call to her so that she can find their bodies - and now there's a serial killer on the loose in her home town...

Or for something a little more romantically inclined, perhaps you would be interested in the first few chapters of Forget-Her-Nots by Amy Brecount White. During a presentation on the Victorian language of flowers, Laurel discovers her gift to use the magic inherent in her bouquets - though they don't always do what she intends. I think this sounds incredible! I'd love to know more about the language of flowers!

Libba Bray has signed on for a new project called The Diviners set during the 1920s in New York. Should be fun!

Art History News:

Interview with David Hosp (Among Thieves) who wrote a novel imagining what happened the night of the theft at the Gardner museum. I know almost nothing about the theft, but I'm definitely intrigued! I have this and Ulrich Boser's The Gardner Heist on my TBR pile! Does anyone have other recommendations?

Author interview with Sheramy Bundrick (Sunflowers) at Passages to the Past - Sheramy (who also hosts the Art History Reading Challenge) talks about her love of van Gogh, her research trips, and the writing process. It's an interesting interview, and I'm now even more eager to see what she's made of Vincent.

Historical Fiction

The Young Bluestockings Book Club over at NineteenTeen will be reading Patricia Wrede's excellent Mairelon the Magician! I've really enjoyed NineteenTeen as an author blog and historical resource, and I'm looking forward to hearing others' thoughts on Mairelon the Magician - it was one of my favorites as a teen. If you're interested (or you too have fond memories) make sure you stop by!

Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) is chatting over at LibraryThing about Hotel & his newest projects. Hotel is one of my favorite books ever, and I'm eagerly awaiting reading what comes next!

Check here for the Calendar of Events for the Historical Fiction Book Bloggers Round Table Event for O, Juliet - there are contests and a number of great posts about Romeo & Juliet and Renaissance Florence.

And with that in mind, I certainly couldn't resist posting the trailer to Letters to Juliet:

I think it looks so cute! Will anyone else be seeing it?

Leonardo and the Death Machine - Robert J. Harris

*** 1/2 - a fun adventure story with a great protagonist. I'm looking forward to reading others in Harris' Young Legends series. If this one is anything to go by, they'll be fun!

Source: Library

Fourteen-year-old Leonardo da Vinci is eager to move beyond the dull copying exercises set for him in his apprenticeship to acclaimed artist Andrea del Verrochio. When an impromptu football match leaves his friend Sandro Botticelli unable to fulfill an important commission for the Medici family, Leonardo jumps at the chance to help. But he gets more than he bargained for when he stumbles across the plans to a mysterious machine. Soon Leonardo has a ruthless assassin on his heels as he attempts to uncover a plot to bring down the ruling family of Florence.

Leonardo and the Death Machine is a fast-paced historical adventure story that highlights all of Leonardo's genius (artistic and mechanical) in a way that doesn't make him seem like MacGyver. I enjoyed the interweaving of details of the way artists worked and the political situation in volatile Renaissance Florence, and I smiled at the inclusion of Leonardo's famous fastidiousness regarding his appearance. For all the inclusion of historical detail, though, Harris never let his research dictate the story. Sports matches, assassination attempts and flying machines make this a book clearly geared toward boys (I certainly enjoyed it as well) - after all, what teenaged boy could resist that title?

Leonardo da Vinci makes a wonderful adventure protagonist - he's ingenious, mechanically and artistically inclined and living during a turbulent and fascinating era. What better way to bring a history lesson alive? Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that there are more of Leonardo's adventures to come, but I'll certainly be picking up the author's other Young Legends titles, including Will Shakespeare and the Pirate's Fire!

January Roundup

Books Finished: 11

Favorite January Read: The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams.

This was a simultaneously difficult and easy book to read. The story flowed along, the voice was engaging and believable, but the subject matter was just beyond heart-breaking. 13-year-old Kyra lives in the compound of a polygamous religious sect. When she's told that she's been chosen to become the seventh wife of one of the men in power, she rebels - but in so doing, she puts her family, herself, and those who care about her in terrible danger.

It's a powerful read, and a much more complicated one than merely condemning the sect or preaching morality. And while the horrors of the sect are presented, it is in a clear showing, not telling way that makes the book that much more painful, and that much better. A fantastic read, but one difficult to bear.

Author Encounters:

Author Ian Beck (Pastworld) stopped by my review to correct my mistaken assumption that the boy playing Jago in his (gorgeous) book trailer was not Indian. Despite the white

Harlequin makeup, Ian assures me that he is definitely Indian - and I am definitely glad to hear it. Thanks for stopping by, Ian. And congrats on the new release!

Michelle Moran (Cleopatra's Daughter), Laura Schaefer (Teashop Girls) and Melissa Walker

(Violet on the Runway) stopped by my Unsung YA Favorites list. Michelle loved King of Shadows, Melissa enjoyed The Possibilities of Sainthood, and Laura was basking in the well-deserved glory of being on my list. Here's hoping more readers pick up each of your books!

Pursuing the Lioness posts at Tempting Persephone:

Angie from Angieville discusses what Alanna the First Adventure meant to her. I especially love the last paragraph

when she talks about sharing the book with someone special.

Persnickety Snark talks about why she loves Alanna and her fierce determination, and how she lost and re-found the story!

Interesting Tidbits:

There's some talk of exhuming Leonardo da Vinci to see if the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait (as often rumored). I'm of the opinion that it probably isn't, but who am I to stand in the way of a good art historical debate?

The Historical Fiction Bloggers Roundtable is featuring Robin Maxwell's O Juliet -

which I'm eager to get my hand on. Check out this post on different versions of the story. I think my favorite version of R&J was the all-male production I saw about a year and a half ago. What's yours?

Books Read:

1. Ice - Sarah Beth Durst

2. The Borgia Bride - Jeanne Kalogridis

3. Pastworld - Ian Beck

4. Heretic - Sarah Singleton

5. Leonardo and the Death Machine - Robert J Harris

6. Hazel - Julia Hearn

7. Stupid Cupid - Rhonda Stapleton

8. The Chosen One - Carol Lynch Williams

9. Seduce Me - Robyn Hart

10. Truly, Madly - Heather Webber

11. Young Bess - Margaret Irwin

Out of the Shadows/Heretic - Sarah Singleton

Elizabeth Dyer knows what it's like to feel alone - her family are the sole Catholics remaining in her village, and Catholics are viewed with extreme suspicion as plotting against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. And now, to make matters worse, her brother has brought a Catholic priest to their home to hide.

When a moss-tinged girl who claims to have spent the past 300 years amongst the faerie turns up in the woods near the destroyed Catholic shrine that Elizabeth's family tends, Elizabeth befriends her, and the two set out to save Elizabeth's family from priest-hunters.

Cover: On the left is the US cover (Out of the Shadows) and on the right the UK cover (Heretic). I found it quite interesting that the US cover and title play up the paranormal and faerie aspects while the UK version focused more on the religious persecution and historical feel. I think they're both gorgeous - which would you have picked up?

My Thoughts: ** 1/2

To be honest, I think this story never quite figured out whether it wanted to be a paranormal story emphasizing Isabella's sacrifice or a historical one focused on the persecution of Catholics during Elizabethan times/wise women in general. I would have read either of those stories, but both seemed to get short shrift in Singleton's story.

The paranormal elements are largely told in flashbacks throughout the story when Isabella reflects on her past. I would have preferred if it had stayed like that, but there's a section near the end when the girls end up travelling through the Shadowlands that felt very oddly tacked on. Plus, it was confusing both as to how that section worked and in what way it was necessary to the plot.

The historical side of things is odd as well. There are some overly wise discussions of religious tolerance from Isabella (which I forgave since she had lived 300 years), but at no point does the author really focus on her issue - the religious persecution. While she implies that the persecution of Catholics during the Elizabethan age was wrong (which I don't deny), I thought it was odd that she didn't address at all the reasons behind the persecutions. Namely that the Pope had excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570 and exhorted all Catholics not to obey her lest they be excommunicated as well (which is a Big Deal at the time), and the numerous plots to kill Elizabeth hatched at the very seminary in Douai from which the priest arrives.

It seemed strange to me that it was never mentioned whether the Dyer family struggled with this order from the Pope or whether they were loyal to Elizabeth - the pope was a complete non-issue, which seems unlikely for a Catholic at the time. The entire lack of context and focusing only on how mean everyone was for being suspicious of the Dyers because they were Catholic really robbed the story of a lot of actual historical flavor for me. Instead, it felt a lot like a morality tale set during a 'convenient' time and without overmuch attention paid to historical detail. It doesn't help that (aside from the prevailing religion) there is nothing to set apart Elizabeth's life from Isabella's 300 years earlier.

Overall, Out of the Shadows/Heretic didn't really work for me, and I think the trouble was the attempt to blend the two stories. I liked both of the main characters, though I thought the depths of their friendship a little sudden. And I would gladly read either Heretic (the religious persecution historical) or Out of the Shadows (the loneliness and sacrifice of a girl leaving the Shadowlands), but this book tries to be both and, in my view, doesn't really succeed.

UnSung YA favorites

At the end of 2009/beginning of 2010, it's the season for Best Of lists, and Kelly over at YAnnebe noticed that a lot of the lists feature books that made a big splash - certainly deservedly (or why would they be on so many lists?). But it got her to thinking, what about those great books that don't make a splash? The ones that people don't know about, but would love if they did?

And that's how her UnSung YA favorites event was born - so here is a list of my 10 unsung YA favorites (fewer than 500 copies on LibraryThing):

1. King of Shadows by Susan Cooper - this is a time-slip historical novel about a modern day boy actor rehearsing to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream with a company of boys in the reproduced Globe Theater in London - only to wake up in Shakespearean London and act as Puck there. This one has Shakespeare made accessible, a story of dealing with grief and finding a father figure, acting tips, and fantastic writing. One of my all-time favorites and sadly not terribly well-known.

2. Powder Monkey by Paul Dowswell - an adventure story of a teenaged sailor on a merchant vessel who is pressed into service in the Navy during the Napoleonic Wars as a powder monkey (the boy who fetches powder to bring to the cannons during battle). What I liked best about this story is that Sam isn't braver, smarter or even morally better than everyone else. He's just a normal boy caught up in a dangerous adventure.

3. The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas - A fun young adult story about a girl determined to be named the first living Catholic saint - as well as catch the attention of her high-school crush. I loved the premise, getting to know Antonia's hilarious Italian family and the feel-good Meg Cabot-like story. This one is well worth picking up.

4. A Murder for Her Majesty by Beth Hilgartner - I have a distinct fondness for Elizabethan England. In A Murder for Her Majesty, a young girl sees her father murdered and so travels to York to escape his killers (whom she believes were sent by the Queen). She hides disguised as a boy in the Cathedral choir, where the boys fondly refer to her as Pup. It's a sweet story and very evocative of the music that means so much to Alice.

5. Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner - This story is very much in the same vein as Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness series. It's the story of Helen of Troy, but the emphasis is far more on her scrappiness than her legendary beauty. She learns how to fight along with her brothers Cassius and Polydeuces and proves herself a true Spartan - full of determination, strength and gumption.

6. Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd - set during the Troubles on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, Fergus finds a small body preserved in a local peat bog. His story, studying for his A-levels, his brother on hunger strike, and his friendship with the archaeologist's daughter who comes to study his 'bog child', alternates with the story of the girl whose remains he discovered. A lovely poignant story.

7. Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw - Adventure, spies, and a little bit of romance - all added to the fact that this is set in ancient Egypt, and is it any wonder this is one of my favorites? While the view of Hatshepsut as pharaoh has since become outdated (she was in fact generally considered a good ruler), it is nonetheless a charming story of conflicting loyalties and intrigue.

8. The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman by Louise Plummer - Kate isn't a huge fan of romance novels, but she sits down to write her own love story with the Romance Writer's Phrasebook - and the results are both hilarious and touching. Kate is myopic to the extreme, she has a distinct fondness for linguistics, and she's hardly the stuff that romance heroines are made of (or so she thinks). Her love story is charming to read, and I really wish there were more people to chat with about this one! Please let me know if you've read it!

9. Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White - With all the fuss surrounding The Hunger Games, it's surprising that this hasn't showed up more on 'similar titles' lists. A group of kids stuck in a dystopian reality where education is televised and careers are meted out based on lucky roles of dice hit their big break (or not) when they are chosen to take part in a reality show to Antarctica mirroring the doomed Shackleton expedition. The kids don't bond instantly but instead slowly come to rely on one another - and their situation keeps getting worse, making for a nail-biting read!

10. The Teashop Girls by Laura Schaefer - this may be more middle grade than YA, but it's such a charming read that I had to include it. The Teashop Girls are a group of friends who bonded when they were very young over special tea at Annie's grandmother's tea shop. Now that Annie has turned 13, she is determined to work at the tea shop she has always adored, but business is bad - and Annie has to come up with ingenious plans to save her beloved shop. Plus deal with all the drama of middle school (friendships, obnoxious boys, school...). The book is lovely, and comes with snippets of articles, tea advertisements, and recipes!

Bonus: The Specialist series by Shannon Greenland - a group of misfit kids are brought together in a secret camp/school to hone their skills to create a team of teenaged spies. There's a chemist, a linguist, a computer whiz, an experienced burglar, and more. Great adventures!

Waiting on Wednesday - The Body Finder

The Plot: Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes that the dead leave behind in the world... and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find the dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer... and becoming his prey herself.

Why I'm Waiting:

Psychic abilities and serial killers mashed up with a best friends romance? I'm completely psyched for this book! I have my own morbid fascination with serial killers (though more from a profiling point of view), I love to read about psychic abilities, and I'm a complete sucker for a romance - especially friends to lovers. It sounds fantastic!

Kimberly Derting's The Body Finder comes out this March, but what if you can't wait that long?

The Contest: The author is hosting a contest for two ARCs (and assorted other swag) here to celebrate her new book trailer!

The trailer:

Pastworld - Ian Beck

*** 1/2 - A great premise full of atmospheric fog, a serial killer run amok and the steampunk/dystopian fun of a corporation determined to make the experience authentic, but the end struck me as oddly unsatisfying.

FTC Disclaimer: I checked this book out from my local library, because libraries rule!

Gaslit Victorian London fuels the imagination - the fog-ridden world of Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and Dickens. And even in the sanitized future, it continues to exercise its pull, to the point where the actual London has been turned into a huge theme park dedicated to experiencing the authentic Victorian-era city. And it is authentic - from the clothing, to the dirt and poverty, all the way to the seemingly uncatchable serial killer, the Fantom who haunts the streets of Pastworld looking for a girl with unusual blue eyes.

My Thoughts: Pastworld reminded me a bit of a steampunk version of Margaret Haddix' Running out of Time, in that our heroine, Eve, has no idea that she is living in a theme park until she runs away to join a traveling circus. I loved the blending of the old-fashioned Victorian lifestyle with futuristic technology, and I thought the entire set-up of the Fantom was incredibly intriguing. The whole thing is twisting and thought-through to the point where I almost can't say much about the plot for fear of giving away some of the joy of experiencing the novel.

There were some things about the characters that struck me as a bit off - I never really grew attached to any of them, and I never figured out what the feud between Bible J's master and the ragged men was all about (a blatantly waving loose end). The characters all seemed a bit like placeholders - I think I liked Caleb the best for his doubts about leaving his father, but Eve was rather flat and Bible J seemed like a carbon copy of the Artful Dodger a few years older. The setting is really the saving grace of the story because it is masterfully described.

Beck does an excellent job of sprinkling clues to help solve the mystery and foreshadowing of the final showdown throughout the novel, and it is a delight to watch the plot unfold eerily in the flickering gaslight. But I have to admit to being less impressed by the end. There's some unfortunate monologuing, for starters, but really the climactic scene is rather anti-climactic - particularly since it ends so abruptly. While I didn't like the end, I was enamored of Pastworld, of Jago the circus clown, and of the originality of the premise. Pastworld is definitely a page-turner, I barely put it down.

I did like that while there is room left for a sequel should Beck care to write one (his interview at Wondrous Reads suggests maybe), this installment of the story stands alone - thank goodness for THAT in a world full of YA trilogies!

Links:

The book site (with the excellent trailer) - though I admit to being upset that Jago isn't Indian! (My mistake - Ian Beck stopped by to assure me that the young man playing Jago in the trailer is, in fact, Indian. Hats off to the production company. Sorry for doubting!)

The rules of Pastworld

Gaskella - The Truman Show Meets Dickensian Melodrama

Wondrous Reads review and author interview

The Borgia Bride - Jeanne Kalogridis

**** - I so did not know what I was getting into. I knew very little about the Borgias going into this novel except that they were ruthless and power-hungry - but Kalogridis did an excellent job bringing the entire situation to life.

Jeanne Kalogridis' The Borgia Bride is the story of Sancha of Aragon, the illegitimate daughter of the cruel, ambitious Crown Prince of Naples. Used as a pawn to further a political alliance with the papacy, she is married off to the youngest of Pope Alexander's acknowledged sons - Jofre Borgia. But Jofre is the weakest of the Borgia clan, and his father and elder brothers as well as his sister Lucrezia all vie for power using violence, poison and passion - and Sancha cannot hold herself apart from the intrigue when she finds herself pursued by her husband's family.

My Thoughts: The most obvious comparison that springs to mind for this book is Philippa Gregory's Other Boleyn Girl. After all, we have sibling rivalry, corruption, intrigue and incest in spades. But where I was nothing but annoyed with Gregory's writing (something for another post), I found that Kalogridis truly swept me along though the twists of her story. I loved and hated Jofre and Cesare by turns, and I felt for poor Lucrezia who was manipulated and twisted by her own family. But most of all, I truly sympathized with Sancha - the strong woman desperate to fight off a legacy of cruelty and determined to protect her brother.

Sancha fights her way through a great number of troubles, though some I thought were glossed over rather too much - even a strong woman suffers lasting effects from some of the scenes Sancha witnesses and experiences, and I think the novel would have been stronger if the author had shown us a bit more of Sancha's reactions. Though part of Sancha's character is to keep a tight rein on her emotions, at times I found her reticence distancing as a reader.

Despite these quibbles, I tore through this book at a ferocious pace, eager to read about how Sancha would deal with Lucrezia, how her relationship with Alfonso and Jofre changed, and what machinations the Pope and his sons were getting up to. And I certainly wasn't disappointed. There's a lot going on and high passions running throughout the novel, just as you would expect in a story about the Borgias (who after all, inspired Machiavelli's The Prince), and while there was rather too much suffering to say that I enjoyed this time in Renaissance Italy, I certainly don't regret a moment I spent there with The Borgia Bride.

Linky-Love:

Tanzanite's Shelf and Stuff (music player)

Obsessed with Books

Books 'n Border Collies

In Between the Pages

Sunday Notables

Reading:

I haven't gotten a lot of reading done this week. Work has been relentlessly busy, and has been going so late that I've been taking cars home rather than the train, which tends to be my prime reading time.

I did finish Pastworld, which I thought had a fantastic and suitably creepy premise. It's a kind of steampunk dystopia where future generations have recreated seedy Victorian London as a unflinchingly authentic theme park - complete with executions, poverty and a knife-wielding serial killer known as The Fantom. I enjoyed the novel with its atmospheric fog and chill a great deal, but I found the resolution more confusing than satisfying.

I've also been reading Heretic by Sarah Singleton (US title: Out of the Shadows) about a girl swept into the faery realms and another persecuted for her Catholic beliefs in Elizabethan England. It's a difficult book to categorize (not quite historical, not quite fantasy), and that may be because I have a sense that it hasn't quite decided where it's going...

Contests:

Carrie's YA Bookshelf is giving away a copy of Darklight by Leslie Livingston. Ends Jan 22.

Hist-Fic Chick is having a great three-book giveaway of Sharon Lathan's Darcy Saga (Mr & Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy, Loving Mr Darcy, My Dearest Mr Darcy). Ends Jan 28.

The Story Siren is giving away an ARC of Sing Me to Sleep by Angela Morrison. Ends Jan 28.

Passages to the Past is giving away a copy of Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin. Ends Jan 29.

Sabrina Jeffries (The School for Heiresses) posted a Guest Blog over at The Good, the Bad, the Unread with some brilliant ideas for a Romanceland Theme Park. It's hilarious and wonderful. Plus? The best suggestion wins a copy of Jeffries' newest release!

Want to know more first? Read an excerpt from The Truth About Lord Stoneville.

Lauren Willig is celebrating the release of her lat

est Pink Carnation book (The Betrayal of the Blood Lily) with a contest to win a sneak peek at her NEXT book - The Mischief of the Mistletoe.

She Is Too Fond of Books is hosting a giveaway of the audio version of The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova (The Historian). Ends Jan 29.

Movies:

Pam Rosenthal has posted a lovely discussion of dancing and Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers' Swing Time on History Hoydens.

Percy Jackson trailer:

http://www.foxinternational.com/percyjackson/

Awards:

Polish Outlander awarded me the J'Adore Your Blog award.

Where is your favorite place to read a book?
Curled up in bed/on the sofa with a cup of tea. I also read on public transportation, but have been known to miss stops...

Bookmarks or dog ears?
Neither really, I tend to just flip through pages until I find where I left off. Generally works pretty well unless it's been a while since I last picked up the book. If I must choose, though, definitely bookmarks.

What is the best book you have read so far this year?
Well, 2010 has been brief so far, so I'm going to stretch back a few months and say that I'm really glad I picked up the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - I was really surprised and charmed by what I found. Of the three books I've read this year, I'd have to say the best was The Borgia Bride.

Do you like to snack while reading and if so, what is your favorite snack?
I love to snack while reading, my favorite snack being Cheerios or grapes (both easy to eat one-handed!).

Book borrower or book collector?
Decidedly both. I finally found time to join the library near my new apartment, and I feel so much better already. But I still feel the need to own those oh-so-good books - I just can't leave a book store without buying something!

I'll be passing on this and the One Lovely Blog Award next weekend - sorry for the wait!

Sunday Notables

Chelle over at Tempting Persephone is hosting a challenge

called Pursuing the Lioness to read more of Tamora Pierce's books (no set number required), or if you've already read them to guest-post about your experience.

I've already posted about how important the Song of the Lioness series was to me (once before) - and I would love to see if it had an impact on any of you, or how you react to the stories the first time around!

I'm hoping to do a series of posts about her series and my favorite characters and link to the challenge. Please join us!

Emily Bryan (Vexing the Viscount) is posting a chapter a month of a delicious short story called A Duke for all Seasons. I took a look at the first chapter, and I'm enjoying it so far. He's a Duke who takes each mistress for one season and one season only - she's an opera singer who is mixed up in something a bit shady. Read along (and vote on how the story should continue here!

Emily also has a fun quiz up to tell you what kind of genius you are to celebrate the upcoming release of her new romance 'A Stroke of Genius' - there's an artist hero, so you know I'll be buying this one day of release! I'm a Romantic Genius - what are you?

In other fun bookish news, I've seen that Ridley Scott is turning Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth into a TV miniseries. I haven't read the book (yet), but the cast of this looks incredible - Matthew McFadyen, Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell... Will you be watching?

In other great news: Muse in the Fog has given me the One Lovely Blog Award! I'll have a think and pass it along next weekend to some of you lovely new-to-me bloggers! Thanks, Muse!

Contests:

I've found several great contests around the blog-o-sphere - there are links in the sidebars to all.

Author Robin Maxwell is hosting a series of contests for beautiful heart shaped necklaces in her ongoing Love Games to promote her new release O Juliet. Enter here!

Win a copy of The Queen's Dollmaker by Christine Trent over at Hist-Fic Chick - ends Jan 16th!

Also at Hist Fic Chick win a copy of Notorious Royal Marriages by Leslie Carroll - ends Jan 20th!

Over at Confessions and Ramblings of a Muse in the Fog, you can win a copy of Liszt's Kiss by Susanne Dunlap - ends Jan 25th!

Reading:

Work has been insanely busy over the last week, but not nearly as crazy as the world of The Borgia Bride which I've been reading this week. The story of Sancha of Aragon, her family and its entanglements with the dangerous and notorious Borgia family is full of poisonings, cruelty, manipulation, lavish parties, and the occasional bout of incest - all based in historical fact. It's been quite a whirlwind! Expect a review early this coming week. You can read the first chapter here, or meet the people involved.

For now, I've left Renaissance Italy behind and have instead turned back to London - but a creepy London that has been turned into a Victorian-era theme park called Pastworld. I'm expecting a gaslight fantasy version of Margaret Haddix' Running Out of Time - it's a great premise and I urge you to check out the website for a flavor of what to expect!

Or watch the booktrailer: