❤ Wed, May. 15, 2013

About Blood Between Queens

Publication Date: April 30, 2013
Kensington Publishing
Paperback; 448p
ISBN: 0758273223

Following her perilous fall from a throne she’d scarcely owned to begin with, Mary, Queen of Scots, has fled to England, hoping her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, will grant her asylum. But now Mary has her sights on the English crown, and Elizabeth enlists her most trusted subjects to protect it.

Justine Thornleigh is delighting in the thrill of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to her family’s estate when the festivities are cut short by Mary’s arrival. To Justine’s surprise, the Thornleighs appoint her to serve as a spy in Mary’s court. But bearing the guise of a lady-in-waiting is not Justine’s only secret. The weight of her task is doubled by fears of revealing to her fiancé that she is in truth the daughter of his family’s greatest rival. Duty-bound, Justine must sacrifice love as she navigates a deadly labyrinth of betrayal that could lead to the end of Elizabeth’s fledgling reign…

Compelling and inventive, Blood Between Queens artfully blends history’s most intriguing figures with unforgettable characters, bringing to dazzling life the fascinating Tudor era.

Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens

Should we act from the head or from the heart? Deliberation or passion? In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility the Dashwood sisters personify this choice in matters of love.

When it comes to ruling a country, with stakes infinitely higher, two queens have immortalized the crucial head-or-heart divide, and they feature in my new novel Blood Between Queens. Elizabeth I of England acted with careful deliberation, keeping her ambitious nobles in line and her kingdom safe from foreign attack during a peaceful reign of over forty years. Her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, followed her passions throughout her seven-year reign, making impetuous decisions that fomented a civil war in which she gambled her kingdom on the battlefield, and lost.

For over four hundred years their story has enthralled the world. It still does.

Mary fled to England to escape the Protestant lords who had deposed her, and begged Elizabeth for an army to fight them. But Elizabeth needed Protestant Scotland as a bulwark against possible invasion by Catholic France or Spain, so she kept keep Mary under house arrest - a captivity, though comfortable, that lasted nineteen years. During it Mary plotted ceaselessly to overthrow Elizabeth and take her crown, and when the last plot almost succeeded, Elizabeth executed her.

The head-or-heart divide that characterized these two queens stemmed partly from their very different upbringing. Mary was sent to France at the age of five to join the French king’s family in preparation for marriage to his heir, Francis, and grew up in the most glittering court in Europe, petted and loved by the French royal family. She married Francis when both were in their teens, and when his father died a year later he became king. Queen of France at sixteen, Mary had little to do but please and pamper herself.

Elizabeth’s childhood, on the other hand, was one of uncertainty and fear. Her father, Henry VIII, beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, when Elizabeth was three. Then he disinherited Elizabeth. When she was twenty-one her half-sister Mary took the throne and sent Elizabeth to the Tower where she expected to be executed. But Mary died four years later and Elizabeth became queen. In those perilous years she had learned to watch and wait, and never to act rashly.

It was a lesson Mary Queen of Scots never learned. When her French royal husband died she returned to Scotland at eighteen to take up her birthright as its queen, and there she fell in love with a dashing English nobleman, Lord Darnley. Impulsively, she married him.

This splintered her nobles into factions, creating a simmering civil war. Mary bore a son, James, but her marriage quickly soured when she found that Darnley was a wastrel and a drunk. She turned to a tough military man, the Earl of Bothwell, and there was gossip they were lovers. One cold February night the house Darnley was sleeping in was blown up, killing him. Bothwell was accused of Darnley’s murder and stood trial, but was acquitted. Three months later, Mary took Bothwell as her third husband. Her people suspected her of colluding with him to murder Darnley, and turned against her.

Elizabeth, famously, never married. She knew that if she did her husband would be considered king, eclipsing her power and creating warring factions. Her decision to remain single brought her considerable personal anguish. She was heard to say, when Mary’s son was born, that she envied Mary the baby “while I am barren stock.” But she knew her decision was wise. Elizabeth loved her people, and often said that they were her family. They loved her in return.

Mary is to be pitied. Kept captive for nineteen years, she was eventually beheaded at Elizabeth’s order. But it was her disastrous, impetuous leadership decisions that led to her downfall. If peace, prosperity, and international respect are the fruits of successful leadership, the cautious Elizabeth remains one of England’s greatest leaders.

Thank you, Barbara!

About the Author

Barbara Kyle is the author of the acclaimed Tudor-era “Thornleigh” novels Blood Between Queens, The Queen’s Gamble, The Queen’s Captive, The King’s Daughter and The Queen’s Lady which follow a rising middle-class family through three tumultuous Tudor reigns. She also writes contemporary thrillers. Over 400,000 copies of her books have been sold in seven countries. In July 2013 Barbara will be a speaker at Ontario’s world-renowned Stratford Festival with her talk “Elizabeth and Mary, Rival Queens: A Study of Leadership Lost and Won” about the cousin-queens Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots featured in Blood Between Queens.

Barbara has taught writers at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and is known for her dynamic workshops for many writers organizations and conferences. Before becoming an author Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the US.

For more information, please visit Barbara Kyle’s WEBSITE.

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Related post:

Review: The Queen’s Lady

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Tags: 2013 | guest post | Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours | Blood Between Queens Virtual Book Tour |

❤ Sun, May. 12, 2013

A lot has happened since Tristan Hart learned that he was a merman and the son of the Sea King. He met tons of merpeople and other fantastical creatures, including an oracle, he was plagued in his dreams by Nieve, the crazy sea witch with the shark teeth, who also sent her deformed creatures to attack Tristan and his friends…he even lost one of his good friends in all of the chaos.

And the chaos only continues to grow as Tristan searches for the remaining trident pieces and realizes that he must pool the resources around him. But instead of gaining, he stands to lose through multiple betrayals and everything comes down to one choice: pursue the kingship or pursue Layla.

When The Savage Blue began, it quickly became apparent that only two weeks had passed since the end of The Vicious Deep. Zoraida Córdova sucked me back into her wonderful Coney Island and underwater worlds – so much so that I barely paused and remembered to take any notes while I was reading. Córdova really brought to life something special with these books and with Tristan Hart, a super well-written and realistic male character. I loved his personality and humor and his flaws.

Tristan still had his sarcastic humor that lightened up even the direst of moments and things between him and his best friend Layla have heated up to entice and tease themselves and the reader amongst everything else that was going on. These scenes were nice little breaks from the very different kind of tension going on for most of the book.

I liked that Gwen, the lone merprincess, was still around a lot in The Savage Blue. I enjoyed her even though I was not sure if she had some other hidden agenda…for now, I like to remember her as she was for the majority of the book.

Thalia was not around as much but her brother Kurt was and Córdova gave the reader the opportunity to learn more about him regarding his past and his personality. It was fun to see his softer and his silly sides and his ire and sensuality was also revealed, which was all a big change from his cool and calm demeanor. Even with everything I learned about Kurt in The Savage Blue, many more questions were raised.

The Savage Blue was even better and more intense than The Vicious Deep. There was tons of action and revelations, some of which were incredibly shocking and totally unexpected for me. This book definitely seems like the game-changer of the series for me and if the next book follows the bar Córdova set for herself, it promises to be even better than the first two and totally epic.

Recommended for readers sixteen and older who enjoy fantasy and paranormal books and who want a realistic teen male voice as the narrator and protagonist. If you are already a fan of The Vicious Deep, there is no doubt that you have to read The Savage Blue immediately.

Zoraida Córdova decided becoming an author was her path in life when she read In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and because of an English class she took. The Vicious Deep was her hilarious and suspenseful debut novel and The Savage Blue is now available.

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Related posts:

Guest Post: Zoraida on Learning English
Review: The Vicious Deep

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Tags: 2013 | review | YA | fiction | fantasy | paranormal | ARC | eBook | NetGalley | 2013 150 Reading Challenge | 2013 eBook Challenge | 2013 Young Adult Reading Challenge | The Savage Blue Blog Tour |

❤ Wed, May. 01, 2013

Please link your May reviews on this post. Each month, there will be a new post where your reviews can be linked for that particular month. You do not need a blog to participate! Posting wherever you post your reviews is fine. I will list the link for each month on the sidebar under the challenge button.

Don’t forget to read the below linking instructions!

When you add the link(s) of your review(s), please leave the book title and your name/blog (i.e. Jane Eyre (Amber) - if you do not have a blog - or Jane Eyre (The Musings of ALMYBNENR) - if you do have a blog). Do not add your blog link but rather the link that will take us directly to your review.

Enjoy this challenge? Please spread the word so we can get more Eyre-iffic participants!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

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Tags: 2013 | challenge | 2013 Books of Eyre Challenge |

❤ Wed, May. 01, 2013

Please link your May reviews on this post. Each month, there will be a new post where your reviews can be linked for that particular month. You do not need a blog to participate! Posting wherever you post your reviews is fine. I will list the link for each month on the sidebar under the challenge button.

When you add the link(s) of your review(s), please leave the book title and your name/blog (i.e. The Tudor Secret (Amber) - if you do not have a blog - or The Other Tudors (The Musings of ALMYBNENR) - if you do have a blog). Do not add your blog link but rather the link that will take us directly to your review.

Like this challenge? Please spread the word!

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Tags: 2013 | challenge | 2013 Tudor Reading Challenge |

❤ Tue, Apr. 23, 2013

In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday (celebrated on April 23 – TODAY!), authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have dropped by with a guest blog post to announce a special contest!

Get A “Twisted Lit” Character Named After You!

We reimagined William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and “Macbeth,” with our “compulsively readable” YA books, Tempestuous and Exposure. Ever since the novels were published a few months ago through Merit Press we’ve encountered a frequent question: Which of Shakespeare’s plays will inspire your next books in the Twisted Lit series?

While we’re currently hard at work putting our own spin on the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet” we thought we’d look to you, the readers, to help us pick the fourth Shakespeare play that will inspire our next book in the series. Got a hankering for a new spin on “Hamlet?” Love to see “King Lear” get a YA update? Would you make much ado over our take on “Much Ado About Nothing?”

Go to our Facebook page (Facebook.com/Twistedlitnovels) and write on our wall to weigh in on which Shakespeare play you’d like us to revamp next. In doing so, you’ll be entered to have your very own name mentioned in one of our upcoming books (either as a character or some other fun reference). If you’ve always wanted to see your name in print — in a YA novel, no less — now’s your chance! The winner will also receive autographed copies of our first two novels, Tempestuous and Exposure.

We’re looking forward to hearing your suggestions! (And don’t forget to follow us on twitter at @kaskew and @amyhelmes.)

* Winner will not be compensated for use of his or her name, and publication is not guaranteed. Details of plot and character used in connection with the name as it appears in the book are up to the sole discretion of the authors. Contest ends June 1.

Kim & Amy

Thank you, Kim and Amy, for inviting me to be a part of this! This is a wonderful giveaway and a great way to celebrate ol’ Will’s birthday as well. I love King Lear and I think it would be so cool for you two to twist that up. But I also love Twelfth Night with all of its mistaken identity and light-heartedness…I think that would be fun to update as well. Here’s hoping!

Related post:

Review: Exposure (Twisted Lit, 2)

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Tags: 2013 | ya | William Shakespeare's Birthday | guest post | giveaway |