Early Mailbox Monday

In a Treacherous Court aka Illuminations by Michelle Diener

""John Parker is one of Henry VIII's most useful courtiers- utterly merciless and completely loyal. But one small favor for his King pulls Parker into a deadly plot against the throne: one that will test his courage, his resolve, and most especially, his heart.

A commission from Henry VIII should have been the crowning achievement of Susanna Horenbout's career, but before she even sets foot in England, the talented artist finds herself in possession of a secret that could change the country's history. With Parker as her only protection against killers who will stop at nothing silence her, Susanna has to trust the dangerous, enigmatic courtier. She's used to fighting in a man's world, but she never expected to be fighting for her life- or her heart".

Amazon

Book Review: FINDING EMILIE by Laurel Corona

This one I have to admit was a tough one. I went in with high expectations because I truly loved ‘Penelope’s Daughter”. In this case however two novels could not be more than different. The legendary Odysseus’ daughter versus the new daughter of a famous French mathematician; worlds apart from each other Laurel Corona shifts away from ancient Penelope to Lili du Chatelet who even as a young child questions everything about life. A mind like lili’s is a rarity in her times and it could have been tragically wasted on conforming to being a young lady of Pre-Revolutionary France.

Sweet Lili, she was a loving child. She had heart where other less courageous people would falter. Lili I think was born with courage because her mother Emilie had passed away not long after giving birth to Lili. Lili was a fortunate girl in the fact that even with her mother gone she would be truly loved by her mother’s best friend Julie de Bercy. Julie begged to take Lili in as her ward even though she was expecting a child herself any day. Julie would not back down and eventually would have her way. The three women would form a type of merry trio. The ladies were all educated, had social skills, and my favorite aspect of the trio was that Julie had made sure she instilled in the girls when they were young that they were free thinkers. She taught them to question what said reason is with class befitting a lady of their ranks.

Lili and Delphine were the type of girls that struggled with society circles and the rules of engagements as far as the court politics were concerned. On the cusp of The French Revolution Lili struggles with what is to be expected of a typical young woman and as she grows into womanhood she begins her search to find out who her mother Emilie really was. But more importantly who was Lili and where was her place in this world going to be?

⅗ here is my deal first the positive: I really loved Lili, Delphine and Julie the merry trio were fabulous to say the least. I felt really attached to Lili and would love to have had the pages of her story “Meadowlark” more integrated into the book. On the positive I wanted more of Lili’s portion. Or at least more of an explanation of whom these important people of influence were in her life. On the downside from the beginning I was lost. The authors note confused me in the beginning along with the prologue. I really did not figure out who the beginning letters were coming from until at least 100 pages into the novel and even then I was still unsure. I really wanted to enjoy this one more but I felt confused most of the novel. I would fully recommend this one to avid pre-revolutionary France lovers because I feel the reader must have an extensive knowledge of the French elite’s of the times.

• FTC-This novel was sent to me by the publisher.
• R-Rating brief sexual references

Amazon

Finding Emile author Laurel Corona on "The Adventures of Meadowlark and Tom"

"Woman is born free, and everywhere she is in corsets. . . . 
Lili du Châtelet yearns to know more about her mother, the brilliant French mathematician Emilie. But the shrouded details of Emilie’s unconventional life—and her sudden death—are elusive. Caught between the confines of a convent upbringing and the intrigues of the Versailles court, Lili blossoms under the care of a Parisian salonnière as she absorbs the excitement of the Enlightenment, even as the scandalous shadow of her mother’s past haunts her and puts her on her own path of self-discovery.
Laurel Corona’s breathtaking new novel, set on the eve of the French Revolution, vividly illuminates the tensions of the times, and the dangerous dance between the need to conform and the desire to chart one’s own destiny and journey of the heart".

Please give a warm welcome to author Laurel Corona...

FINDING EMILIE

LAUREL CORONA

THE ADVENTURES OF MEADOWLARK AND TOM

Around a hundred pages into the first draft of FINDING EMILIE, I realized I had a dilemma. Although the two main characters, Lili and Delphine, aristocratic school girls in eighteenth-century Paris, were funny, imaginative, and full of life, when I envisioned the future I would have to write for them, I got depressed thinking about it.

It’s not just that they would have to wear corsets, panniers, and wigs a mile high, although that to me would be bad enough! It was more the expectations--absurdly high about things that don’t really matter, and humiliatingly low for those that do.

How draining it must have been for women to realize that the most valuable learning they were expected to master, other than church catechism, was the precise kind of nod appropriate for Monsieur So-and-so, and the exact depth and length of curtsey for the Countess of This-and-That. How dreary to accept that the frequent subject of gossip at court was some poor soul’s failure to be humorous, graceful, witty, charming in exactly the right measure at the moment.

“What have I gotten Lili and Delphine into?” I asked myself, but really I was wondering what I had ahead for myself. My novels are optimistic in tone and positive in sentiment, and the protagonists are psychologically healthy females who manage to thrive despite the limitations of their era. The focus is on the inner conflict that comes from having to figure out when to take a stand, where to choose to make life more difficult to have it be more fulfilling, how to find and be yourself when everything conspires to mold you into someone else. How was I going to keep sunshine in this novel as the situation grew more gloomy?

The answer came to me in a figment of Lili’s imagination, a scrappy little girl named Meadowlark. A lover of fairy tales, early in the novel, Lili tries writing a story herself, but what comes out is not an imperiled princess, but an alter-ego, a little girl who escapes her dreary life on a magic horse named Comète and meets an adventurous boy named Tom, with whom she roams earth and the heavens in search of adventure.

These stories became a way for Lili to explore her fears and frustrations. She may not know that’s what she’s doing, but the reader will. As Lili matures, her stories become more pointed and less swashbuckling, until by the end she is writing mature satire in the vein of Gulliver’s Travels and Candide.

And what better way to acknowledge that Lili’s era is when social satire first emerged as a powerful literary form, taking on the serious issues of the day with delicious humor? What better way to pay tribute to Voltaire, Emilie du Chatelet’s real-life soul mate?
Meadowlark becomes a means for Lili to comprehend her world and preserve her sense of self as she navigates the court at Versailles and faces the future of a loveless marriage and a life that will squeeze her more mercilessly than a stomacher or corset. The stories give her a chance to breathe, to give voice to herself.

And I think they’re hilarious! In Kiev we learn about the Court of Good Choices, in China we see a man make the social gaffe of writing a poem to the woman he loves, in rural France we watch a girl get her brains scrambled so she can become a good wife, in Uruguay, we meet a rich family tied up in golden chains to prove they don’t have to work for a living, and in the Brazilian rainforest, we witness some pointed realizations about happiness.

The tales of Meadowlark and Tom are an important part of Lili’s story, so I was disappointed when the editor expressed concern that they took the reader away from the main narrative. Since the reader is temporarily distracted by the vignettes from the life of Emilie du Chatelet, Lili’s dead mother, which appear between chapters, and by a smattering of letters that tell part of the story, the editor felt that one more diversion was too much. The decision we reached was to use only snippets from the Meadowlark tales in the novel and then present the complete versions as a separate little book bound in at the end.

I’m not the best judge of whether this worked. So many things require fresh eyes, which of course I don’t have. In the author’s note at the beginning, I tell readers what’s going on, but I have a feeling people won’t go to the end and read the stories as Lili writes them (this would be best), and may not know the stories are there at all until they get to the end. I don’t know what the experience of reading them all as a group will be, but it isn’t what I intended. But things are what they are, and I am hopeful these stories will both complement the novel, and perhaps have a life of their own someday. I’d really like to jump back on Comète and continue to see the world through Meadowlark’s eyes!

I am down to the wire on "Finding Emilie" and will just have to wait and see how it plays out for me in the end. Thank you Laurel for getting us up to speed on Meadow Lark and Tom's portion of the novel.

For more on Laurel,
Her Website
Her FB
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RSS Feed

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"Historically Obsessed with Roman Food" by Kate Quinn author of Daughters of Rome and Mistress of Rome

"A.D. 69. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. The Year of Four Emperors will change everything-especially the lives of two sisters with a very personal stake in the outcome. Elegant and ambitious, Cornelia embodies the essence of the perfect Roman wife. She lives to one day see her loyal husband as Emperor. Her sister Marcella is more aloof, content to witness history rather than make it. But when a bloody coup turns their world upside-down, both women must maneuver carefully just to stay alive. As Cornelia tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, Marcella discovers a hidden talent for influencing the most powerful men in Rome. In the end, though, there can only be one Emperor...and one Empress".

Please welcome back to Historically Obsessed author Kate Quinn. Her previous release "Mistress of Rome" released last year and on April 5th "Daughters of Rome" hit book stores everywhere.  Kate visited last year for Mistress of Rome with "Historically Obsessed with fashion". Now lets see what Kate has in store for us this time.

Historically Obsessed with Roman Food

Obsessed with Roman food? Scratch that – while writing my historical fiction novel Daughters of Rome, I was obsessed with any food, because I wasn't getting any. I was on a diet while writing the second half of the book, and it was a form of torture I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Historical fiction novelists already have a hard time with diets because delicious food is constantly cropping up in the books we write. Set a book in the Middle Ages and soon you're drooling over sugar subtleties and spit-roasted boar. Writing about the Restoration period? Prepare to go on a Ben & Jerry's binge after detailing all the newly invented ice creams Charles II and his various mistresses went wild over. Or you could be very unlucky, like me, and write about ancient Rome: probably the most gastronomically inventive culture the world has ever produced. As if that weren't bad enough, Daughters of Rome happens to take place during the Year of Four Emperors – and the third of those four emperors was Vitellius, a walking stomach who was only on the throne about six months but spent most of that time eating literally the best food in the world.

It was torture. I choked down my dry crackers and calorie-free miso soup as my heroines dined on roast sparrows in spicy egg sauce and sausages with damsons and pomegranate seeds. I gave up dessert, but my heroines went to Imperial banquets and ate jellied roses in pastry. And wine – everyone in my book swilled goblet after filigreed silver goblet of wine (Romans drank little else) while I sipped grimly at my diet green tea.

Of course, not everything about Roman cuisine would please a 21st century eye. I for one am glad never to have been served an entire elephant trunk at a party. And when I read about one particularly famous Roman dish where a live fish was brought to the table still alive so the guests could watch it turn a pretty color as it died in a pool of lamprey milk sauce – all I could think was that I prefer my food to be dead by the time it reaches my plate, thank you. And if you're wondering how anybody managed to eat all those dishes at a 100 course banquet . . . well, legendary gourmets like Emperor Vitellius made use of a little room called a vomitorium after fifty courses or so, returned with an empty stomach, and kept right on eating through another fifty courses. (Bulimia: the Roman way.)

Still, Roman banquets were usually pleasant things, and you could do worse than to try hosting one the next time you're in an ambitious mood. Be sure to invite between three and nine guests (no less than the Three Graces, no more than the Nine Muses, according to a contemporary of Cicero in his instructions for the perfect dinner party), and seat everyone on a horseshoe arrangement of couches so they can recline on the left elbow while eating. You must provide entertainment, and remember that Greek orators are always appropriate and naked dancing girls always tacky. And here's a sample menu for your pre-dinner shopping trip:

FIRST COURSE
Jellyfish and eggs
Boiled tree fungi with peppered fish-fat sauce
Sow's udders stuffed with milk and eggs
Sea urchins in spiced oil

MAIN COURSE
Ham boiled with figs and bay leaves, rubbed with honey and baked in a pastry crust
Dormice stuffed with pork and pine nuts
Flamingo boiled with dates
Roast parrot
Boiled ostrich with sweet sauce
Fallow deer roasted with onion sauce, Jericho dates, raisins, oil, and honey
Turtledove boiled in its feathers

DESSERT
Hot African sweet-wine cakes with honey
Fricassee of roses with pastry
Dates stuffed with pine nuts and fried in honey

One more thing: can you please invite me to your Roman banquet? My diet of green tea and miso soup has for the most part paid off (despite a leetle lapse with a Roman-style oyster ragout) and I have now been cleared to eat all the stuffed dormice I want.

Lizzy, thanks for having me back this year! It’s been a pleasure.

Thank you Kate for the very enticing post. I could not imagine eating so many different things in one meal. Giveaway! Up for grabs is one brand new copy of Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn. Open to US and Canada only. The ONLY rule is you MUST fill out the form below.

Hot Upcoming HF

"John Parker is one of Henry VIII's most useful courtiers- utterly merciless and completely loyal. But one small favor for his King pulls Parker into a deadly plot against the throne: one that will test his courage, his resolve, and most especially, his heart.

A commission from Henry VIII should have been the crowning achievement of Susanna Horenbout's career, but before she even sets foot in England, the talented artist finds herself in possession of a secret that could change the country's history. With Parker as her only protection against killers who will stop at nothing silence her, Susanna has to trust the dangerous, enigmatic courtier. She's used to fighting in a man's world, but she never expected to be fighting for her life- or her heart.

F.Y.I. on this one it was originally set to be titled as "Illuminations" but it is now titled "In a Treacherous Court". This novel is author Michelle Diener's debut historical fiction novel. I am sorry to say that this one will not be releasing until August 2, 2011. This one even has Kate Emerson's stamp of approval and that means it has to be really good.

Cover Alert "Becoming Marie Antoinette" by Juliet Grey

"This enthralling confection of a novel, the first in a new trilogy, follows the transformation of a coddled Austrian archduchess into the reckless, powerful, beautiful queen Marie Antoinette.

Why must it be me? I wondered. When I am so clearly inadequate to my destiny?

Raised alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon.

Before she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change everything about herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen.

Filled with smart history, treacherous rivalries, lavish clothes, and sparkling jewels, Becoming Marie Antoinette will utterly captivate fiction and history lovers alike.

Look for special features inside.
Join the Circle for author chats and more.
RandomHouseReadersCircle.com"

Oh my goodness I want that DRESS!! I swear I would wear it just to sit on the couch all day LOL. This one novel that I am really in high anticipation for and can not wait for the release which is set for August 9th 2011.

Amazon Pre-Order

YA Resources and Mr Linky results

As many of you might remember awhile back I posted about how to find good clean reads for young adults called "Recommended Reads for YA". I posted a Mr linky for anyone who wanted to recommend a novel that specifically fit the CLEAN YA requirements. Thank you readers and fellow bloggers who submitted a astounding list of 41 links. Thank you and I am sure some YA readers will love the list and appreciate the time it took to input all those links. Now as far as the polls that I had running one of them was corrupted and never worked but the one that did work here are the final results.

The Poll:
Are Vampires YA appropriate?
16% of you said "No"
66% of you said "it depends on the book"

The YA recommended good clean reads submitted links:

1. Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein 2. A Golden Web by Barbara Quick 3. The Bad Queen by Carolyn Meyer 4. Daughter of Fire and Ice by Marie-Louise Jensen 5. Ashes by Kathryn Lasky 6. Leigh Ann's Civil War by Ann Rinaldi 7. Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards 8. Daughters of the Sea: Hannah by Kathryn Lasky 9. Warrior Princess by Frewin Jones 10. La Petite Four by Regina Scott 11. Duchessina by Carolyn Meyer 12. Duchessina by Carolyn Meyer 13. In Mozart's Shadow by Carolyn Meyer 14. Nine Days a Queen by Ann Rinaldi 15. The Last Duchess by Sharon Stewart 16. The Nine Days Queen by Karleen Bradford 17. Princess in the Tower by Sharon Stewart 18. The Pale Assassin by Patricia Elliott 19. Lady in the Tower by Marie-Louise Jensen 20. Time of the Witches by Anna Myers 21. Troubadour by Mary Hoffman 22. Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa Klein 23. The Stolen One by Suzanne Crowley 24. Unclaimed Heart by Kim Wilkins 25. A Sweet Disorder by Jacqueline Kolosov 26. A Sweet Disorder by Jacqueline Kolosov 27. Two Girls of Gettysburg by Lisa Klein 28. The Plague by Joanne Dahme 29. Bewitching Season bY Marissa Doyle 30. The Season by Sarah Maclean 31. Chains by Laurie Halse ANderson 32. Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl 33. Montacute House by Lucy Jago 34. Faithful by Janet Fox 35. The Queen's Daughter by Susan Coventry 36. Everlasting by Angie Frazier 37. Red Necklace by Sally Gardner 38. I am Rembrandt's Daughter 39. Spy in the House by YS Lee 40. Edge on the Sword 41. YA historical fiction booklist on goodreads

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

HFRT Christy English "To Be Queen" Event Wrap Up

All righty it is a wrap. This months HFRT feature of "To Be Queen" by Christy English was super fun and be sure to check out the below links for all kinds of other place to go to check out more on Christy English and her brand new release. Thank you Christy for playing such a proactive role in our feature and it was was a pleasure.  

Check out my review of "To Be Queen"

Check out the HFRT Giveaway on Historically Obsessed for an autographed copy of To Be Queen" today is the last day for the giveaway!!!
Guest post by Christy English " Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Courts of Love"
On the HFRT group site is an extra special giveaway with an Eleanor hand mirror! 

 

HFRT Members sites to check out for more on "To Be Queen" including guest posts, and giveaways.

Allie of Hist-Fic Chick
Arleigh of Historical-Fiction.com
Heather of The Maiden's Court

 

"After her father's sudden death, fifteen-year-old Eleanor is quickly crowned Duchess of Aquitaine and betrothed to King Louis VII. When her new husband cannot pronounce her given name, Alienor becomes Eleanor, Queen of France.

Although Louis is enamored of his bride, the newly crowned king is easily manipulated by the church and a God that Eleanor doesn't believe in. Now, if she can find the strength to fight for what she wants, Eleanor may finally find the passion she has longed for, and the means to fulfill her legacy as Queen".

 

Amazon

To Be Queen: A Novel of the Early Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine 

The Queen's Pawn

In Stores Now Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell and Winners

"When art student Claude Monet glimpses a fetching girl at the train station en route to Paris, it is, as they say, love at first sight. When he tracks Camille Doncieux down months later and convinces her to become his model, it is an embarrassment of riches. The two become lovers, but because starving artists have always been deemed poor husband material, Camille’s family mightily objects to the affair, just as Monet’s father vehemently opposes his son’s career. The couple finds solace in the company of Monet’s fellow aspiring painters: Renoir, Pissaro, and Bazille chief among them. While commercial and critical success elude him, Monet’s love for Camille eventually succumbs to the forces of physical and financial ruin. The connection between artist and muse potentially offers a rich trove for authors, and Cowell mines the tempestuous relationship of Monet and his romantic and artistic inspiration with a nimble and discerning command as she indelibly evokes the lush demimonde of nineteenth-century Paris".

The winners of the "Claude and Camille" giveaway are:

Cindi Hoppes, Terra Baker, sharon blajev, Kendall, Nancy

In stores today and if you did not manage to snag yourself a copy in the giveaway today is the day it is finally released in book stores everywhere. For more on this incredible book check out my review, Stephanie's guest post on Monet, and my best reads of 2011.

Amazon