A sweeping tale of sexual seduction and intrigue at the court of Henry VIII, At the Mercy of the Queen is a rich and dramatic debut historical about Madge Shelton, cousin and lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn. At the innocent age of fifteen, Lady Margaret Shelton arrives at the court of Henry VIII and quickly becomes the confidante of her cousin, Queen Anne Boleyn. But she soon finds herself drawn into the perilous web of Anne’s ambition. Desperate to hold onto the king’s waning affection, Anne schemes to have him take her guileless young cousin as mistress, ensuring her husband’s new paramour will owe her loyalty to the queen. But Margaret has fallen deeply in love with a handsome young courtier. She is faced with a terrible dilemma: give herself to the king and betray the love of her life or refuse to become his mistress and jeopardize the life of her cousin, Queen Anne.

From Anne Barnhill, the author of At the Mercy of the Queen, comes the gripping tale of Mary Shelton, Elizabeth I's young cousin and ward, set against the glittering backdrop of the Elizabethan court Mistress Mary Shelton is Queen Elizabeth's favorite ward, enjoying every privilege the position affords. The British queen loves Mary like a daughter, and, like any good mother, she wants her to make a powerful match. The most likely prospect: Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. But while Oxford seems to be everything the queen admires: clever, polished and wealthy, Mary knows him to be lecherous, cruel, and full of treachery. No matter how hard the queen tries to push her into his arms, Mary refuses. Instead, Mary falls in love with a man who is completely unsuitable. Sir John Skydemore is a minor knight with little money, a widower with five children. Worst of all, he's a Catholic at a time when Catholic plots against Elizabeth are rampant in England. The queen forbids Mary to wed the man she loves. When the young woman, who is the queen's own flesh and blood, defies her, the couple finds their very lives in danger as Elizabeth's wrath knows no bounds.

Debut author Sarah Kozloff offers a breathtaking and cinematic epic fantasy of a ruler coming of age in A Queen in Hiding first in the quartet of The Nine Realms series. Four books. Four months. Nine Realms. Readers will be able to binge this amazing fantasy series with beautiful interlocking art across the spines of all four books. Orphaned, exiled and hunted, Cerulia, Princess of Weirandale, must master the magic that is her birthright, become a ruthless guerilla fighter, and transform into the queen she is destined to be. But to do it she must win the favor of the spirits who play in mortal affairs, assemble an unlikely group of rebels, and wrest the throne from a corrupt aristocracy whose rot has spread throughout her kingdom. The Nine Realms Series #1 A Queen in Hiding #2 The Queen of Raiders #3 A Broken Queen #4 The Cerulean Queen At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz provide a forum for the underexamined, anomalous reigns of queens in history. These regimes, primarily regarded as interruptions to the ?normal? male monarchy, have been examined largely as isolated cases. This interdisciplinary study of queens throughout history examines their connections to one another, their constituents? perceptions of them, and the fallacies of their historical reputations. The contributors consider historical queens as well as fictional, mythic, and biblical queens and how they were represented in medieval and early modern England. They also give modern readers a glimpse into the early modern worldview, particularly regarding order, hierarchy, rulership, property, biology, and the relationship between the sexes. Considering topics as diverse as how Queen Elizabeth?s unmarried status affected the perception of her as a just and merciful queen to a reevaluation of ?good Queen Anne? as more than just an obese, conventional monarch, this volume encourages readers to reexamine previously held assumptions about the role of female monarchs in early modern history.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER, New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a Best Book of the Year from NPR, Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, and others. The mesmerizing story of one woman's rise from circus rider to courtesan to world-renowned diva—"a brilliant performance" (Washington Post). The Queen of the Night tells the captivating story of Lilliet Berne, an orphan who left the American frontier for Europe and was swept into the glamour and terror of Second Empire France. She became a sensation of the Paris Opera, with every accolade but an original role—her chance at immortality. When one is offered to her, she finds the libretto is based on her deepest secret, something only four people have ever known. But who betrayed her? With epic sweep, gorgeous language, and haunting details, Alexander Chee shares Lilliet’s cunning transformation from circus rider to courtesan to legendary soprano, retracing the path that led to the role that could secure her reputation—or destroy her with the secrets it reveals. “It just sounds terrific. It sounds like opera.”—The New Yorker “Sprawling, soaring, bawdy, and plotted like a fine embroidery.”—NPR

In this first novel of the “rollicking” (The New York Times Book Review) Agents of the Crown series, the man who will become the original MI6 agent protects England and Queen Elizabeth I from Spain’s nefarious plan to crush the Age of Enlightenment. After centuries locked in an endless cycle of poverty, persecution, and barbarity, Europe has finally emerged into the Age of Enlightenment. Scientists, philosophers, scholars, and poets alike believe this to be a new era of reason and hope for all. But the forces of darkness haven’t completely dissipated, as Spain hunts and butchers any who dare to defy its ironclad Catholic orthodoxy. Only one nation can fight the black shadow that threatens this new age, and that is Britain, now ruled by a brilliant young Queen Elizabeth I. But although she may be brave and headstrong, Elizabeth knows she cannot win this war simply by force of arms. Elizabeth needs a new kind of weapon forged to fight a new kind of war, in which stealth and secrecy, not bloodshed, are the means. In this tense situation, Her Majesty’s Secret Service is born with the charismatic John Dee at its head. A scholar, a soldier, and an alchemist, Dee is loyal only to the truth and to his Queen. And for her, the woman he’s forbidden from loving, he is prepared to risk his life in this “twisty, fast-paced debut” (Publishers Weekly).

View our feature on Dianne Sylvan's Queen of Shadows Meet Miranda Grey—music and magic are in her blood. Overwhelmed by her uncanny ability to manipulate people's emotions through her music, Miranda Grey comes to the attention of vampire lord David Solomon. Believing he can help bring her magic under control, David discovers that Miranda's powers may affect the vampire world too...

A stunning novel in the tradition of "Eragon" and "Artemis Fowl"

During the Elizabethan era, writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Daniel, and others frequently expounded on mercy, exploring the sources and outcomes of clemency. This fresh reading of such depictions shows that the concept of mercy was a contested one, directly shaped by tensions over the exercise of judgment by a woman on the throne.

Constance Studer's collection of short stories, Queen of the Sugarhouse, brings to life strongly drawn characters dealing with challenging circumstances. A registered nurse in ICU struggles to do the right thing after she makes a mistake. A homeless Desert Storm veteran grieves for his own loss of health, as well as for the loss of his father. Two women test their life-long friendship while one of them undergoes a facelift. A doctor's life is forever changed during one twenty-four hour shift in the Emergency Room. A writer, committed to a psychiatric hospital because of an accident, uses her writing to heal. A novice nurse learns her job from taking care of a confused old man who has suffered a stroke. A waitress struggles with caring for her younger brother, who has muscular dystrophy. A daughter reluctantly comes home to nurse her difficult mother, who drove first her husband then her daughter to flea the Ohio farm where their livelihood was making maple sugar. "Every person has a story," Carl Jung observed. "Derangement happens when the story is denied. To heal, the patient needs to rediscover his story." Constance Studer's characters find healing in making pottery, taking photographs of objects not usually thought of as beautiful, in climbing mountains, in writing a novel. Healing is a process, a journey toward balance, connectedness, meaning and wholeness, rather than an outcome.