English Renaissance

1584: Elizabeth I rules England. But a dangerous plot is brewing in court, and Mary Queen of Scots will stop at nothing to take her cousin’s throne. There’s only one thing standing in her way: Tom, the queen’s trusted apothecary, who makes the perfect silent spy. 2021: Travelling the globe in her campervan, Mathilde has never belonged anywhere. So when she receives news of an inheritance, she is shocked to discover she has a family in England.

This is a fantastic first novel in a trilogy. Set in a parallel world, in an Italy that in this world is called Talia and in a Venice that in this world is called Bellezza, the narrative follows Lucien, who in this world is ill with cancer. Given a marbled notebook to help him communicate when his throat hurts too much to speak, this notebook is the means that transports Lucien to this magical, dangerous new world. This is a world which is set in the C16, and thrills to the delight of political intrigue, including assassination attempts both foiled and successful.

Most historians credit the city-state of Florence as the starting place of the Italian Renaissance, a process carried out through the patronage and commission of artists during the late 12th century. If Florence is receiving its due credit, much of it belongs to the Medici family, a Florentine dynasty that ruled at the height of the Renaissance. Both Leonardo and Michelangelo were members of Lorenzo de Medici's court. The famous leader, who also considered himself an artist and poet, became known for securing commissions for the most famous artists of the age.

Ten remarkable women. One remarkable era. In the Tudor period, 1485 to 1603, a host of fascinating women sat on the English throne. The dramatic events of their lives are told in The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens.

An exhaustively researched novel weaves both historical fact and plausible fiction in bringing the story of Mary Queen of Scots to life.

Before Amsterdam, there was a dazzling North Sea port at the hub of the known world: the city of Antwerp. In the Age of Exploration, Antwerp was somewhere anything could happen or at least be believed. And it was a place of change. But when Antwerp rebelled with the Dutch against the Spanish and lost, all that glory was buried and its true history rewritten. In Europe's Babylon, Michael Pye sets out to rediscover the city that was lost and bring its wilder days to life using every kind of clue: novels, paintings, schoolbooks, and the archives of Venice, London, and the Medici.

1812. Arriving back in England after his successes in the Adriatic, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is bestowed with honours. In London, he's greeted by the Prince Regent, who, despite Kydd's protestations that he's happy with his present command, insists he be given a bigger ship - HMS Thunderer, a 74-gun ship of the line. But she's old, and being part of a standing fleet, Kydd's chances of further fame and distinction are slim indeed.

At the age of sixty-one, Judith Shakespeare, a midwife-apothecary and twin of the long-dead Hamnet, must flee provincial Stratford on horseback to avoid arrest for witchcraft. Her traveling companions are a zealous Puritan woman and child who have been displaced by civil war—the bloody seventeenth-century strife between Royalists and Roundheads. Judith is also leaving her marriage, which has foundered since the wrenching loss of two adult sons to the plague.

In the castle at the heart of battle-scarred Elysia, Tessa Serafina di Acampora faces her wedding to Duka Yosef. She’s spent years building herself into a strategic advisor invaluable to the ailing leader of the nation, becoming a woman the world won’t forget. The betrothal should be a boon, a promise of the good life. But she can’t stop thinking of the other beautiful ladies of the court… Prema Nyssa, hero of Elysia who just ended their long war with Ermandi, finds herself dragged to Casteli Valoria to reap the rewards.

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography. In this work, which was actually begun in 1558 but not published until 1730, Cellini beautifully chronicles his flamboyant times. He tells of his adventures in Italy and France, and his relations with popes, kings, and fellow artists.

This book is Volume II of my work on Miguel de Cervantes, the author of the famous, pioneering novel Don Quixote de La Mancha. The novel was published in two parts: the first part in 1605 and the second part in 1615. My Volumes I and II on Cervantes discuss the first part of the novel. Future volumes will discuss the second part of the novel. Why bother with Cervantes and his most famous work? Don Quixote presents a lengthy and entertaining meditation on the meaning and significance of our human lives: the need for purpose and adventure in our lives, the crisis of aging, the role of love ...

In the early morning of 6 May, 1527, the 20,000 starving, unpaid troops of Emperor Charles V began their assault on the great walls of Rome. After only a few hours they had overcome the barricades; the city into which they streamed was now in their grip. This uncontrollable force of German landsknechts, Spanish soldiers, and Italian mercenaries showed no mercy as they plundered, raped, and slayed their way through the holy city.

Scotland, 1567. A pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots is dragged out of her palace by rebel lords and imprisoned in the isolated Lochleven Castle, an ancient fortress surrounded by a vast lake. Her infant son and heir, James, has been captured by her enemies. Accompanying Mary are two inconspicuous serving women: observant, ambitious Jane and romantic, quick-tempered Cuckoo, who endeavor to keep their mercurial mistress company while sharing the space of a claustrophobic room over the course of their eleven-month forced stay. Their hosts want them dead. They'll settle for Mary's abdication.

Though Eleanor is not wealthy, the saffron spice she grows for her new husband is more valuable than gold. But as his reputation in Henry’s court soars, Eleanor soon understands that she has entered into a dangerous game. The king’s affections do not last forever, and she must do anything to protect her family.

In every nation, in every era of history, there are inevitably one or two places that become the symbol of the times. Mention Valley Forge to an American and it will immediately conjure up visions of a hard won fight for freedom. Likewise, the word Dunkirk said to a Briton will elicit a sense of both pride and horror at the lives lost and saved at that desperate point in World War II. For the French, and those who study their history, Versailles is a symbol of, as Charles Dickens once put it, "the best of times...the worst of times."

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum and a deadlock. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell.

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter's abilities.

Why would a woman marry a serial killer? Because she cannot refuse.... Kateryn Parr, a 30-year-old widow in a secret affair with a new lover, has no choice when a man old enough to be her father, who has buried four wives - King Henry VIII - commands her to marry him. Kateryn has no doubt about the danger she faces: the previous queen lasted 16 months, the one before barely half a year.

In the best-selling Warriors of God and Dogs of God, James Reston Jr. limned two epochal conflicts between Islam and Christendom. Here he examines the ultimate battle in that centuries-long war, which found Europe at its most vulnerable and Islam on the attack. This drama was propelled by two astonishing young sovereigns: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Turkish sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Though they represented two colliding worlds, they were remarkably similar.

England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart King Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World.