"A Murder At Rosamund's Gate" by Susanna Calkins~New Historical Fiction!

SUMMARY :

In Susanna Calkins's atmospheric debut novel, a chambermaid must uncover a murderer in seventeenth-century plague-ridden London.

 

For Lucy Campion, a seventeenth-century English chambermaid serving in the household of the local magistrate, life is an endless repetition of polishing pewter, emptying chamber pots, and dealing with other household chores until a fellow servant is ruthlessly killed, and someone she loves is wrongly arrested for the crime. In a time where the accused are presumed guilty until proven innocent, lawyers aren't permitted to defend their clients, and--if the plague doesn't kill them first--public executions draw a large crowd of spectators, Lucy knows she may never see this person alive again. Unless, that is, she can identify the true murderer.

Determined to do just that, Lucy finds herself venturing out of her expected station and into raucous printers' shops, secretive gypsy camps, the foul streets of London, and even the bowels of Newgate prison on a trail that might lead her straight into the arms of the killer.

In her debut novel, Susanna Calkins seamlessly blends historical detail, romance, and mystery into a moving and highly entertaining tale.

 

 

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

 

Published by:  Minotaur Books/St. Martins Press

Pages:  338

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Author:  Susanna Calkins

You may purchase here:  Amazon

Find the author's website here:

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http://www.susannacalkins.com



ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

 

Educator, historian, faculty developer by day... writer by night...I've had a morbid curiosity about murder in seventeenth-century England ever since grad school, in those days before I earned my Ph.D. in history. The ephemera from the archives--tantalizing true accounts of the fantastic and the strange--inspired my historical mysteries.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, I live outside Chicago now, with my husband and two sons. Represented by David Hale Smith of Inkwell Management, my first novel, A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (Minotaur/ St.Martin's Press), will be published April 23, 2013.

INTERVIEW !!!!

I'm so thrilled to bring you this very upbeat and exciting interview of Susanna Calkins to kick off her debut novel.  Obviously, can't wait for you to meet  her!!

Thank you so much for allowing me to join you today.  These questions were a lot of fun to answer.

1)       Tell us something about yourself, please.  How do most people describe you? 

According to my husband: Motivated, friendly, energetic…open to possibilities and change.

 

2)      Where is your favorite place to write?  Any special gimmicks, writing tools or keepsakes that you keep near you when you write…I hear authors can be superstitious!

When I’m working on my novel, there are a few coffee shops near my house where I like to write. I don’t need any special keepsakes, but I like to have a coffee on hand, and a smooth flowing pen for when I write long-hand. But now that you mention it, maybe I should get a troll…

3)      Who first told you you could write well, and how did it affect you?

 

Great question! In sixth grade we had to create stories that incorporated a list of spelling words. I had so much fun writing these stories!  I’d make them as scary and mysterious as possible (strewn of course with ridiculous spelling words like “alleviate”). We had to read them out loud each week to the class. Over the weeks, my teacher began to have me read last, and the class would get really excited when it was my turn. They made me feel I could tell a fun story that others would enjoy.

 

4)      Which contemporary authors do you most admire?

I love a lot of current mystery authors—Anne Perry, Rhys Bowen, Elizabeth George all come to mind—although I also appreciate some YA authors like Suzanne Collins, Tamora Pierce and Shannon Hale.

5)      Which are your favorite classical authors? 

Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Lloyd Alexander and Lucy Maud Montgomery.  I’ve read every one of their books multiple times.

 

6)     Jump into any book~which character would you be?

Who doesn’t dream of being Elizabeth Bennett?  However, I would also love to be Eilonwy from Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, because she was the original tough tomboy princess.

 

7)     If you could have 5 historical people to dinner, who would they be?  What would you have to eat?

For pure crazy entertainment, I’d go with Nell Gwyn (17^thcentury actress), Ben Franklin (although I’d have to keep him from Nell), Malcolm X, Houdini and maybe Dorothy Parker!  I’m confident they’d like to eat Indian food and Kingfisher beer. What do you think? J  Love it!

 

8)     Ocean or Lake? 

Growing up in Philly, going down the shore was the highlight of the summer. Although I live on beautiful Lake Michigan now, my heart is still with the Jersey shore.

 

9)      Favorite two tv shows:

Ah so tough!   Currently, Bones and Nikita, but Battlestar Galactica and Alias are all-time favorites.

 

10)   Favorite movie of all time:

I’ll give you three: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Pride and Prejudice (A&E with Colin Firth) and to be honest, The Deathly Hallows Part II (a pretty perfect culmination of an epic series).

 

11)   Are you working on a new book?

I am working on TWO new books. One is the second Lucy Campion novel, tentatively called From the Charred Remains.  (I really don’t think that title will stay though); I am waiting for feedback from my editor.  I am also nearly finished a YA novel, which I hope to submit soon.

 

12)   Anything else I forgot to ask you?

Thank you so much for having me! I would love to know which 5 characters YOU  would invite to dinner! And what your readers would say too!

 

I just knew you had an Austen character in you, Susanna!!  LOL  I could tell from reading your novel!   Okay, you have me... The 5 characters I would invite to dinner are:  Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Poe, and Joyce Carol Oates.  I'd have my husband make them a wonderful Sicilian dinner:  Fra Diablo with fresh olive bread and a dark red wine to stimulate them all.  I'd want a raucous conversation...  I think those Bronte sisters were dark and much more firey than they get credit for being!  I'd just sit back and enjoy...

 

 

HERE'S MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK :

"A Murder At Rosamund's Gate" is a most refreshing historical novel replete with its mystery and mayhem.  While the beautiful cover suggests it is more centered around a ladies maid, the novel itself is broader in perspective, making it the perfect introduction for more books in a series.  I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the characters.  Susanna Calkins is a wonderful author of this time period!

 

Ms Calkins peppers her writing with knowledge of the Reformation and the idiosyncracies of the people and times.  For instance, I loved the small peculararities of women's clothing and customs she brings out...some of which I hadn't heard of even after all my reading of historical fiction!  Also, there were rhymes and notes of interest throughout the book that made my eyes and ears perk up with new knowledge.  I really appreciated the reference to Anne Bolyen and London Bridge, as an example.  You'll have to read to see this one!

 

The characters of this book are beautifully drawn and ring true.  There is enough depth in them that they will be more than worthy of a series.  I'm particularly attached to Lucy and her loyal ways.  She's a thinker and a true heroine in the broadest sense.  I think she'll find a fast following with those who love a mystery series in historical timeframes.

 

Susanna Calkins is a writer who carries you gently through her novel of mystery and suspense.  She builds her story carefully and creates an atmosphere in which you learn her characters' strengths and weaknesses.  You learn to love them and to know them before she sets them in real jeopardy.  I like this sort of suspense-building in a book.

 

I think the historical fiction mystery genre has a new player to contend with!  This is a novel to sit back and enjoy.  I look forward to the next one in the series.

 

5 stars                     Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

 

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GIVEAWAY!! "The Chalice" by Nancy Bilyeau~Tudor/Reformation Historical Fiction

THE SUMMARY :  
 

In the midst of England’s Reformation, a young novice will risk everything to defy the most powerful men of her era.

 

In 1538, England’s bloody power struggle between crown and cross threatens to tear the country apart. Novice Joanna Stafford has tasted the wrath of the royal court, discovered what lies within the king’s torture rooms, and escaped death at the hands of those desperate to possess the power of an ancient relic.

Even with all she has experienced, the quiet life is not for Joanna. Despite the possibilities of arrest and imprisonment, she becomes caught up in a shadowy international plot targeting Henry VIII himself. As the power plays turn vicious, Joanna realizes her role is more critical than she’d ever imagined. She must choose between those she loves most and assuming her part in a prophecy foretold by three seers. Repelled by violence, Joanna seizes a future with a man who loves her. But no matter how hard she tries, she cannot escape the spreading darkness of her destiny.

To learn the final, sinister piece of the prophecy, she flees across Europe with a corrupt spy sent by Spain. As she completes the puzzle in the dungeon of a twelfth-century Belgian fortress, Joanna realizes the life of Henry VIII as well as the future of Christendom are in her hands—hands that must someday hold the chalice that lies at the center of these deadly prophecies. . . .

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Touchstone/Simon & Schuster
Pages:  482
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Author:  Nancy Bilyeau
Visit Author's website:  http://www.NancyBilyeau.com
Purchase this book:  Barnes & Noble  or Amazon


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nancy Bilyeau has worked on the staffs of InStyle, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Ladies Home Journal. She is currently the executive editor of DuJour magazine. Her screenplays have placed in several prominent industry competitions. Two scripts reached the semi-finalist round of the Nicholl Fellowships of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her screenplay "Zenobia" placed with the American Zoetrope competition, and "Loving Marys" reached the finalist stage of Scriptapalooza. A native of the Midwest, she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. The Crown is her first novel.
Some earlier milestones: In 1661, Nancy's ancestor, Pierre Billiou, emigrated from France to what was then New Amsterdam when he and his family sailed on the St. Jean de Baptiste to escape persecution for their Protestant beliefs. Pierre built the first stone house on Staten Island and is considered the borough's founder. His little white house is on the national register of historic homes and is still standing to this day.
Nancy lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

 AN INTERVIEW WITH NANCY :

Nancy, I'm so excited to have you here at A Bookish Libraria today..you have no idea.  I'm such a fan of your writing.  First, I want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in your series, "The Crown" and encourage all my readers to get a copy of that book and read it, as well.   I'll leave everything else to my review below.  So, let us begin the interview...  Welcome!

1) First of all, please tell us a special something about what makes you “tick.”  When you aren’t writing, what are you doing?

I’m a mom of a son, Alex, and a daughter, Nora, so they keep me extremely busy when I’m not at the office, where I’m a magazine editor, or writing my books. The Sunday before The Chalice came out I should have spent every second promoting and blogging the imminent release, but Alex had a science project due that involved comparing temperatures, so I ended up running around with him all afternoon in the col getting the readings. Ha.

Of course this means I don’t get a chance to watch my favorite shows until weeks later. I taped the season finale of Downton Abbey and then couldn’t watch it until a month afterward. Talk about dodging the spoilers.

 

2) We’re always curious about where a writer chooses to write.  Could you tell us about your favorite place to write?  Describe it in detail…what’s on your desk, what do you see from the window if any…do you have a favorite lucky charm?

I don’t have a study, writer’s room or even a desk, I’m afraid. I wrote my first book, The Crown, at the kitchen table or at Starbuck’s. For The Chalice I was approved to work in a writer’s study in the New York Public Library: long wooden tables in a small room. Occasionally I would take my laptop to the Cloisters Museum and write in the corners of the rooms, soaking in inspiration.

 

 

3) Bronte or Austen?  Hemingway or Hawthorne?  Why?

I love both, but the Bronte sisters’ books are darker, which is more to my taste--and I can never say no to the moor.

 I am a big Hemingway fan for his amazing power of description. The beginning of A Farewell to Arms is breathtaking.

 

4) Which author(s) most influenced your love of books?

I fell in love with Daphne du Maurier early on and I think she still influences me In high school in Livonia, Michigan, my creative-writing teacher read aloud passages from “Ragtime” and it had a huge effect on me.

 

 

5) Read any good books in the past 6 months?

Yes! I read the entire Ariana Franklin series back to back, the Mistress of the Art of Death books, and they were wonderful. I also read an advance galley of Elizabeth Fremantle’s “Queen’s Gambit,” about Catherine Parr, and I highly recommend it. Right now I’m reading Thomas Penn’s “The Winter King,” a non fiction book about Henry VII—rich, writerly prose.

 

6) Choose 4 guests from any era for dinner.  Who would they be and what would you choose for a topic of conversation?

Queen Zenobia

Boudicca

Elizabeth I

Mary Wollstonecraft

Topic: women’s independence.

 

7) There’s a song that goes along with your book, what is it?

Anything by composer Trevor Morris, who has written music for “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Pillars of the Earth,” “The Tudors,” and “The Borgias.” I am especially moved by The Death of Jane Seymour, in Season 3 of The Tudors.

 

8) If you could cast your book for a movie, who would you choose for your 2 main characters?

Eva Green and David Oakes for the leads, and Ralph Fiennes for Bishop Stephen Gardiner.

 

9) Worst habit you have while writing?

Checking twitter. I honestly don’t know what we did before Twitter—I’ve met so many people this way and learned a great deal. And laughed. But it is a time destroyer.

 

10) How much research did you do before and during writing this book?

I have a home bookshelf filled with books on the 16^thcentury, based on being interested in the Tudors since I was 11 years old. For my first book, The Crown, I researched life in a priory and the history of relics in England and other specific areas for five years while I wrote it. For this book, The Chalice, I did a month or so of research and then I started outlining the book. I like to research as I go. Also I traveled to England and visited Dartford and London and interviewed various experts.

 

11) Psychologists tell us the thing we think we’d most like to grow up to be when we’re ten years old is our avocation.  What did you want to be?

A writer. Sorry to be so predictable

 

 

You're anything but predictable, Nancy!  Thanks for this interview.  I learned a good deal about you, and look forward to your next book.

 

 

 

 

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

 

As you can already see Nancy Bilyeau is one of my favorite historical fiction authors.

This dark and dreamy book of hers is just a scrumptious read.  It carries us through the Tudor Reformation on the legs of Joanna Stafford a beautiful, aristocratic, displaced nun who is chased by prophesies.  Like enticing pieces of dark chocolate, this book kept me hungry to read chapter after chapter into the night.  It's one of those books that takes hold in an insidious way...before you know it, you're completely hooked.

 

Nancy Bilyeau's writing is full of historical detail, but it isn't dry reading.  Her work is like a tapestry that's interwoven with dark and light threads that balance the whole causing your eye to move easily throughout the story.  It draws you along and keeps you intrigued.  While Henry VIII is mentioned, he isn't a major figure in this book, but a shadow figure whose dictates play upon the central ones.  A refreshing look on the Tudor period!

 

Characters in "The Chalice" are alive and exciting!  I loved each one in their roles.  Joanna Stafford is a wonderful, strong young woman with a mind of her own and a little temper that walks her on the edge of real trouble, adding to the anxious elements of the story.  Other characters are beautifully created, too.  I enjoyed the love interests here, and their commitments to church and Joanna.  Those involved in necromancy and prophecy are eye-opening!

 

This is a book that stands alone in historical fiction today.  It's a great read, and one you shouldn't miss.  Although you can read it as a "stand alone," I would still recommend getting the first book in the series, "The Crown."  Both of the books are rich in detail and storyline.  Couldn't put this one down.

 

A dark and rich mystery, and a story of the Reformation through the eyes of a very early feminist, "The Chalice" is one book to have this Spring!

 

5 stars!!              Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

 

 

 

This review and interview are sponsored today by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.  Please go to the site to see more about Nancy Bilyeau, her books and to find more reviews, interviews, guest post and giveaways!  http://www.hfvirtualbooktours.com

 

 

                                                 GIVEAWAY!!!!

 

  A giveaway of "The Chalice" will be held on

 

                    March 31st  for the US only

 

*To enter:  Please 1) follow me on Twitter

 

@thebookish dame, 2) be a follower of our blog,

 

and 3) please leave your email so I can contact you!!!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today!   Deborah  :]

 

 

 

*READ MY EARLIER REVIEW OF "THE CROWN" AND ANOTHER INTERVIEW OF NANCY BILYEAU ON THE BLOG HERE:  http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com/2012/03/crown-by-nancy-bilyeauauthor-with.html

 

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"The Gilded Lily" by Deborah Swift~Historical Fiction Captivates!

 

 

SUMMARY :

 

A spellbinding historical novel of beauty and greed and surprising redemption

England, 1660. Ella Appleby believes she is destined for better things than slaving as a housemaid and dodging the blows of her drunken father. When her employer dies suddenly, she seizes her chance--taking his valuables and fleeing the countryside with her sister for the golden prospects of London. But London may not be the promised land she expects. Work is hard to find, until Ella takes up with a dashing and dubious gentleman with ties to the London underworld. Meanwhile, her old employer's twin brother is in hot pursuit of the sisters.

Set in a London of atmospheric coffee houses, gilded mansions, and shady pawnshops hidden from rich men’s view, Deborah Swift's The Gilded Lily is a dazzling novel of historical adventure.

PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK :
Published by:  St. Martin's Press
Pages:  471 and Reader's Guide
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Author's Site:  Deborah Swift

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Find out more about this exciting new historical fiction author by clicking this link at Macmillan New Writers:  http://macmillannewwriters.blogspot.com/

Her other book out now:

Both of these books may be found at:
Barnes & Noble   and   Amazon


THE BOOKISH DAME'S REVIEW :

How I enjoyed this historical fiction!  "The Gilded Lily" is a large book with some 470 pages, but worth every word read.  I wasn't very well versed in the Reformation and the historical details of that period of English history, so I found the book fascinating in costume detailing and incidences of the times.  This is a beautifully developed novel that captivated and held me spellbound. 

Characters Sadie and Ella are sympathetic and living creatures in this story.  Ms Swift immediately draws a natural connection with them for us  She holds us rapt with attention as they forge their way  through the tough streets and warrens of London in the 1600's.  I found the development of their hard-scrabble lives provoking an anxiety in me that matched what they must have been going through, and Ella's small successes made me feel relief, as well. 

My favorite character was Sadie, who was a kinder and more empathetic figure throughout the novel.  Ella was tough and feisty as she needed to be for the two of them to survive!  Jay, under world fop and proprietor's son of the town's famous pawn shop, is a complex character I loved to puzzle out.

I thought the visual creation of the settings of London were wonderful in this book.  The pawn shop in particular came as alive as a Dickens novel!  For instance, I climbed and explored the rafters with Ella as she toured them initially with Jay who took her there with his vision of a glorious "lady's beauty" secret getaway.  The creation of the actual "Gilded Lily" was fascinating.  This is a book with ambiance.

This is a historical novel that moves swiftly, telling the story of two sister's survival against all odds.  It's a feminist novel of sorts, and that made it a great find, as well.  Not a sappy novel where the women are pawns of the men.  I highly recommend it for a good read.

4 stars                     Deborah/TheBookishDame

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