Books That I Covet...

MAIRELON THE MAGICAIN BY PATRICIA C. WREDE

Kim, a streetwise girl who disguises herself as a boy, and Mairelon, an itinerant magician who dresses as a dandy, share adventures in an alternate Regency England that is populated with sorcerers and riddled with magic.

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL BY PHILIPPA GREGORY

Fabulous historical novel set in the court of King Henry VIII. Mary Boleyn attracts the attention of the young king and becomes his mistress; when he tires of her, she sets out to school her sister, Anne, as a replacement. Politics and passion are inextricably bound together in this compelling drama. The Boleyn family is keen to rise through the ranks of society, and what better way to attract the attention of the most powerful in the land than to place their most beautiful young woman at court? But Mary becomes the king's mistress at a time of change. He needs his personal pleasures, but he also needs an heir. The unthinkable happens and the course of English history is irrevocably changed. For the women at the heart of the storm, they have only one weapon; and when it's no longer enough to be the mistress, Mary must groom her younger sister in the ways of the king. What happens next is common knowledge -- but here it is told in a way we've never heard it before, with all of Philippa Gregory's characteristic perceptiveness, backed by meticulous research and superb storytelling skills.

TO SHIELD THE QUEEN BY FIONA BUCKLEY

When Ursula Blanchard, a poor young widow in 1560, is sent to Queen Elizabeth palace to protect the Queen's reputation, she becomes involved in solving th murder of the wife of a man with whom the queen has fallen in love.

A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER BY DAVID LISS

Benjamin Weaver is an outsider in eighteenth-century London: a Jew among Christians; a ruffian among aristocrats; a retired pugilist who, hired by London's gentry, travels through the criminal underworld in pursuit of debtors and thieves. In A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER, Weaver must investigate a crime of the most personal sort, involving the mysterious death of his estranged father, a notorious stockdealer. To find the answers, Weaver contends with a garrulous prostitute who knows too much about his past, estranged relatives who remind him of his alienation from the Jewish faith, and a group of powerful men in the world of finance who have disguised their business dealings with an intricate web of deception and violence. Relying on brains and brawn, Weaver uncovers the beginnings of a strange new economic order based on stock speculation - a way of life that poses great risk for investors, but real danger for Weaver and his family.

EMPRESS ORCHID BY ANCHEE MIN

To rescue her family from poverty and avoid marrying her slope-shouldered cousin, seventeen-year-old Orchid competes to be one of the Emperor's wives. When she is chosen as a lower-ranking concubine she enters the erotically charged and ritualised Forbidden City. But beneath its immaculate facade lie whispers of murders and ghosts, and the thousands of concubines will stoop to any lengths to bear the Emperor's son. Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasuring a man, bribes her way into the royal bed, and seduces the monarch, drawing the attention of dangerous foes. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and that she will be its last Empress.

NEWES FROM THE DEAD BY MARY HOOPER

WRONGED. HANGED. ALIVE? (AND TRUE!) Anne can't move a muscle, can't open her eyes, can't scream. She lies immobile in the darkness, unsure if she's dead, terrified she's buried alive, haunted by her final memory—of being hanged. A maidservant falsely accused of infanticide in 1650 England and sent to the scaffold, Anne Green is left with her racing thoughts, and her burning need to revisit the events—and the man—that led her to the gallows. Meanwhile, a shy 18-year-old medical student attends his first dissection, and notices something strange as the doctors prepare their tools . . . did her eyelids just flutter? Could this corpse be alive?

THE HIGHWAYMAN'S FOOTSTEPS BY NICOLA MORGAN
Inspired by "The Highwayman," the famous poem by Alfred Noyes, this dramatic and moving historical adventure is set on the stark, ghostly moors that seem as menacing as the pursuing redcoats. A thrilling adventure featuring a feisty heroine, a rebellious young man, and a galloping, heart-clutching story.
THE STRING OF PEARLS
The original Sweeney Todd.
SOVAY BY CELIA REES
It's England, 1783. When the rich and beautiful Sovay isn't sitting for portraits, she's donning a man's cloak and robbing travelers—in broad daylight. But in a time when political allegiances between France and England are strained, a rogue bandit is not the only thing travelers fear. Spies abound, and rumors of sedition can quickly lead to disappearances. So when Sovay lifts the wallet of one of England's most powerful and dangerous men, it's not just her own identity she must hide, but that of her father. A dazzling historical saga in which the roles of thieves and gentry, good and bad, and men and women are interchanged to riveting effect.
BLOOD RED, SNOW WHITE BY MARCUS SEDGWICK
Set at the time of the Russian Revolution, the end of a centuries old dynasty, the rise of the Bolsheviks sent shockwaves around the world. This is the story of one man who was there. It's real history - about the riches and excesses, the glory of the Russian nobility, Nicholas and Alexandra, their haemophiliac son, Alexei, notorious Rasputin, Lenin and Trotsky who ruled from palaces where the Czars had once danced till dawn. The man was real too, his name was Arthur Ransome. He was a writer, accused of being a spy, perhaps even a double agent, and he left his wife and beloved daughter and fell in love with Russia and a Russian woman, Evgenia. Fictionalising history and blending it with real life, part i is told as a fairy tale. Wise and foolish kings, princesses, enchantresses (characters more suited to fairy tale than reality), wishes and magic, Russia with its vast cold plains and mighty cities, its riches and poverty, all play a part in the downfall of the Czars and rise of the new order. Part ii is about betrayal - Ransome the spy, bleak and threatening. Part iii is a love story, a fairy tale, ending - of Ransome's love for his daughter, Tabitha, and for Evgenia. With all his hallmark gothic style and cleverly created crossing places bridging history and fairy tale, BLOOD RED, SNOW WHITE is a multi-layered novel destined to be a bestseller.
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON BY DANIEL KEYES
Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper, and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes, until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius. But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental tranformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.
CAPTAIN MARY, BUCCANEER BY JACQUELINE CHURCH SIMONDS
This adventure of greed and romance will carry you to a distant time when violence was the norm, and the difference between the good and the bad was the flag they flew from the masthead. Captain Mary is more than an ordinary pirate; she is both principled and ruthless, a robber baroness and a generous patron. She is as much loved by her allies as she is hated by her enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy her and her empire. But those seeking Marys head best watch out for their own, for in Captain Mary they will find a worthy adversary and deadly foe.

I, CORIANDER BY SALLY GARDNER

In this exceptionally well-crafted tale, Coriander tells the story of her childhood in seventeenth-century London - and of her discovery that she has inherited magical powers from her mother, who was a fairy princess. But her mother's sudden death brings on a dark time for Coriander. And after mourning her beloved mother and dealing with the disappearance of her father and the wrath of her evil stepmother, Coriander finds herself locked in a chest with no hope of escape and no will to survive. But when a bright light beckons to her, it is then that Coriander's journey truly begins. Beautifully written, this magical and luminous story is destined to become a children's classic.