Chanticleer Book Reviews

Category: Reviews

  • The LOTTERY GAME by Gerard Shirar – Suspense, Legal Thrillers, Mysteries

    The LOTTERY GAME by Gerard Shirar – Suspense, Legal Thrillers, Mysteries

    Cancer survivor Pete Morrissette wants to spend the remainder of his life relaxing beside the heated pool or strolling through the gardens at the up-scale assisted living retirement community. Instead, he’s “doing time” in FMC Devens, a federal prison hospital.

    How did mild, friendly Pete Morrisette end up the scapegoat in a con that duped Massachusetts’s Lottery out of nearly $5,000,000? While everyone in prison claims they are innocent, Pete truly is. Even one of the prosecuting attorneys can see that, but someone has to answer for the dirty deed, and Pete is an easy target.

    In Gerard Shirar’s latest suspense legal thriller, eighty-eight-year-old Pete is the perfect everyman. After leading a relatively quiet life, Pete plans on leading a relatively quiet retirement. A father, a husband, and an all-around decent man, nothing exciting or monumental ever happened in Pete’s average, upper-middle-class life. But all that changed when his wife of fifty-three years died. Pete moved to Brook Haven, a retirement home catering to a senior intellectual set, and, as one may expect, he soon became bored.

    When Manfred Toomey, a former big-wig businessman, moves into Brook Haven and establishes a gambling club, he befriends Pete. And when Toomey approaches him about organizing a lottery-playing group to raise money for a charity organization, Pete cautiously agrees. Pete is smart – but not smart enough to trust his instincts. His desire to help struggling families quiets his suspicions about the legality of what he’s been asked to do – and his common sense. He wants to help but ends up as a pawn for the Mafioso. Big money walks free while the once hard-working father and husband takes the fall to appease a misplaced need for justice – the appearance of it anyway.

    Shirar creates a compelling case in Pete’s story, so neatly fitting together that it’s frightening in its plausibility. He builds a resilient and relatable character in Pete, one who tells his story through an engaging second-person point of view journal from prison. Growing old isn’t for sissies, and through it all, Pete chooses to see his own story as “God’s lottery” and deals with whatever “fate and time” have given him.

    Just like Shirar’s other works, readers will find an intricate study of human nature and the vulnerability of those we care most about in this mystery thriller. Pete Morrisette’s story feels as if it could have been ripped from the pages of newspapers today as countless elderly are duped by those who would prey upon them. And that’s what makes The Lottery Game a must-read.

    Gerard Shirar is a Finalist in the 2020 Mystery and Mayhem Awards for When the Rules Don’t Apply.

     

     

  • STAZR The World of Z: The Dawn of Athir by Dr. Anay Ayarovu – Teen & Young Adult Sci-fi Adventure, Epic Fantasy, Russian Literature

    STAZR The World of Z: The Dawn of Athir by Dr. Anay Ayarovu – Teen & Young Adult Sci-fi Adventure, Epic Fantasy, Russian Literature

    STAZR The World of Z: The Dawn of Athir, is the opening of a grand quest into the origin of this world, the history it has suppressed, and most important of all, a journey to open the legendary gates that will lead its people back out into the wider galaxy. Or at least that’s what the powers that be in the city of Trebarad believe when they uncover a prophecy about a “Chozen One” who can open the gate at the heart of the town.

    The story begins with the finding of that Chosen One, the scholar Radatat Lael, living in self-imposed isolation far from the city – or anywhere else. Lael seems to be unique among the people of this world. He was born on Arisam and did not merely arrive, adult and ignorant, from the other side of the world. What also makes him unique is he actually had and remembers his childhood. This perspective will give him the insight required to open the mysterious and mystical “gates.”

    Lael’s isolation has also given him a sense of wonder about the world that he has explored in books but never seen, as well as a bit of an overinflated sense of his own intelligence and consequence.

    On his journey to Treebarad, he experiences wonders and dangers that he’s dreamed about, only to face decisions that mirror his visionary dreams. Disturbing visionary dreams – and far more dangerous.

    This story is only the beginning of Radatat Lael’s story. As this opening volume in the series ends, Lael and his companions are on the cusp of moving out into the greater universe – but only after learning that much of what they believed about their world is not entirely true.

    Lael’s story is a mix of science fiction and fantasy. Lael’s dreams of the STAZR Maiden, his visions that come true, the prophecy that sets the story in motion, and the saarum that gives the “Greats” of this world power – all read as fantasy. Lael’s journey itself reads like mythmaking and legend – although the legend being created is about himself and told from his first-person perspective. And Lael is just a bit full of himself much of the time.

    But this is just the beginning of the STAZR world. Author, Dr. Anay Ayarovu a former Russian national is starting something new, building something rather admirable. She’s inviting all who feel they don’t belong (because, as she says, they are meant to create new ways of being) to contribute art in all forms to add to the expansive universe called Stazr. The book is just the foundation from which gaming, television series, and movies may spring. Authors of all skill levels are also invited to submit their short stories about the STAZR universe for consideration to be included in the series.

    STAZR The World of Z: The Dawn of Athir as a whole is a bit of a tease. In Lael’s journey and the people and beings he meets, the reader gets the sense of a fascinating world just waiting to be discovered. Readers should know that this first installment is a chewy read. It takes patience and opens the gates of creativity and development within the reader. In short, the STAZR universe has the very real potential of becoming something far greater than what we see at this moment in time. There is a long list of questions about the fundamentals of this world as the story draws to a close, and given the author’s mission, this perhaps is a very good thing.

    A new way of storytelling opens the doors for those with vision and drive to dive in. And what a brilliant way of going about it! Artists and authors alike will want to dig into this universe and explore the possibilities.

     

  • VAMPIRE BOY by Aric Cushing – Middle-Grade Books, Halloween Children’s Books, Y/A Fairy Tales & Fables

    VAMPIRE BOY by Aric Cushing – Middle-Grade Books, Halloween Children’s Books, Y/A Fairy Tales & Fables

    Full of fun and quirky characters, author Aric Cushing invites readers to join him in a world where Halloween never ends. The tale begins with the prophesied birth of the white-haired Alex Vambarey, who draws the attention of a darkling vampire named The Deleter.

    After being saved by all the citizens of Hillock Green, the plot then shoots forward to the eve of Alex’s departure to school. He is an adventurous boy who takes this new chapter in his life in stride, and after saying goodbye to his parents, Alex begins the rather long journey to school. There he meets a whole cast of absurd characters and makes fast friends who help him solve the school riddle.

    Creative influences such as any of the Tim Burton films show up strongly in the book’s visual imagery, most notably when Alex travels through a tree and descends a terrifying staircase. Even though the inspiration of Tim Burton is strong, Cushing still creates a unique land of Halloween.

    Cushing’s Vampire Boy is also fairly unapologetic about how heavily it is inspired by Harry Potter. Whether that is done on purpose to draw in children who enjoyed that series, or as a way to poke fun at itself is hard to tell. It is good to note that the areas of the story where it diverts from the tropes of Harry Potter are some of its strongest moments.

    The narrator of Vampire Boy is somewhat unreliable because they repeatedly interject into the story to hint at a future event, which most of the time does not play out by the end of the book. When thinking about the art of storytelling, this narrative strategy does not necessarily make sense, but it keeps readers on their toes.

    It has to be noted that this story ends on a cliffhanger. A lot of the book is spent on Alex getting to school and ends right around the cusp of the story’s climactic moment, and some may find that to be an unsatisfactory ending. Overall there is a lot of humor throughout and this humor is the best quality of Vampire Boy, especially the comedic moments of Alex and his classmates learning about the human world.

    Kids who love Halloween, and have active imaginations, will have fun reading Vampire Boy and will laugh as Alex and his friends misunderstand the human world during their quest to crack their school’s riddle.

    Vampire Boy won First Place in the 2018 CIBAs, GERTRUDE WARNER Awards for Middle-Grade Fiction.

     

     

  • PELSAERT’S NIGHTMARE by Gregory Warwick Hansen – Maritime Historical Fiction, Mutiny & Shipwrecks, Biographical Historical Fiction

    PELSAERT’S NIGHTMARE by Gregory Warwick Hansen – Maritime Historical Fiction, Mutiny & Shipwrecks, Biographical Historical Fiction

    To fully understand this rich immersive novel about a 17th Century mutiny and its murderous aftermath – a prime candidate for a “crime-of-the-century” label – it’s best to understand the true story of what happened in 1629 off the coast of what is now Indonesia.

    The Batavia was a treasure-laden fleet ship of the powerful Dutch East India Company, the global Amazon of its time, with more than 300 men, women, and children on board. But the Batavia’s fate was sealed by a greedy captain and a mysterious pharmacist who hijacked the ship for its booty and crashed it on a speck of an island off the Australian coast.

    When survivors of the shipwreck landed, Jeronimus Cornelisz the pharmacist, and his followers were said to have murdered upward of 100 of them. Historians believe that some were brainwashed to kill one another, take women survivors as sex slaves, and slaughter several children. Some individuals place Cornelisz in the same evil company as serial killers Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

    The most complete historical record of the massacre came from Francisco Pelsaert, the Company’s senior representative on board the wrecked ship. His diary, written shortly after the Batavia tragedy occurred, is the basis for this novel.

    We are taken deep into Pelsaert’s story who is dying as the book opens. We get to know him as a Company man, no less dedicated to commerce than any globe-traveling corporate soldier of our own times. But as the story of the Batavia unfolds, we also see the politics of the era, an understanding of the competing political forces in the 1600s ransacking the world for treasure and spices – the Dutch, Spanish, and English – entities no less complicated but far more vicious and venal than today’s international trade warriors. The truth be told, these times were hellish. Deaths, almost unimaginable tortures, and barbarism were rampant in this era, and the novel spares the reader few details of them.

    Even as Pelsaert provides us with a detailed accounting of the Batavia disaster, written in graphic and often profane language, he also stares deeply into his own complex past, jumping in time from past to present and back again. We see how a road warrior of those times thought and acted, as unsparing of himself as he is of his contemporaries. You may not ultimately like the Company man, but he will treat you to a reading experience of a world both far removed from our own and yet sadly familiar.

    Pelsaert’s Nightmare won First-Place in the CIBAs 2018 Chaucer Book Award for pre-1750s historical fiction.

  • WRAPPED in the STARS by Elena Mikalsen – Contemporary Romance, Medical Fiction, 20th Century Historical Romance

    WRAPPED in the STARS by Elena Mikalsen – Contemporary Romance, Medical Fiction, 20th Century Historical Romance

    Maya Radelis has spent the last seven months running from herself. After the death of a patient, she abandons her pediatric residency in New York City for the jungles of Guatemala and the Family Health Volunteers Mission. However, after exhausting her six-month leave, she still cannot bring herself to return to New York. Instead, Maya ends up in Edinburgh, Scotland, where fate intervenes.

    In a small antique shop, an inscribed ring somehow “calls” to her. Unwilling to part with it, Maya purchases the ring and traces its history. She has seven days before she must return to the university and face the consequences of her absence, as well as the investigation of her patient’s death. Fearing she will no longer be allowed to pursue a medical career and dreading the meeting where her fate will be revealed. Maya wants to make the most of her search for the ring’s previous owner, especially after she begins to have strange dreams and memory-like episodes of the woman she thinks owned the ring. Enlisting the help of Pauline, her French friend, she traces an odd, twisting path through Paris then Bern, Switzerland. The more she discovers, the more she begins to question her destiny.

    With its alternating narration, Elena Mikalsen’s Wrapped in the Stars shows two women’s worlds, so far apart and yet so similar. Maya Radelis, an American medical student, is shown in parallel with the life of a Swiss medical student in the years leading up to World War I, Rebecca Miller. Though the obstacles for Rebecca are vastly different than the ones facing Maya, their feelings of uncertainty and their love of medicine are very much the same. Rebecca’s desire to become a doctor comes from a family heritage of medicine and, in some part, from the death of her brother, Karl. Maya is also following a family legacy while hoping to somehow erase the guilt she feels for the childhood death of her twin sister, Ella. Both of these accomplished women have this need to “[e]arn [their] right to be alive” and somehow validate their own existence through medicine.

    Both women share a Jewish ancestry, and neither woman sees the need to marry, desiring instead their independence in a world they have built, instead of the one handed to them through family ties and marriage bonds. While fearing the lonely paths before them, Maya and Rebecca doubt their abilities and often wonder if their sacrifices are truly worth the pain of disappointing others. However, each find men strong enough to understand them both and love them eternally.

    “Synchronicity,” or “meaningful coincidences” plays an enormously important role in the novel. Readers will enjoy following Maya’s story, the twists and detours that create such an interesting plot as her history and future entwine. A tactic Mikalsen skillfully employs to make one wonder just how much we choose for ourselves and how much the universe decides for us.

    Eternal love is the most touching aspect of Maya’s and Rebecca’s stories. The German inscription Maya finds in Rebecca’s ring says it best with its message of living within the heart of another and being forever “therein.” It’s a beautiful message, a love strong enough to defy death and reclaim the lovers a century later. Something is reassuring and peaceful in believing love cannot die. And when all is said and done, what lovers wouldn’t want such a legacy?

    Wrapped in the Stars received First Place in the CIBAs 2018 CHATELAINE Awards for Romantic Fiction.

  • The DRUIDS: An Informal Read by Ilene Birkwood – Paganism/Neo-Paganism, Druidism, Religious Studies – Science & Religion

    The DRUIDS: An Informal Read by Ilene Birkwood – Paganism/Neo-Paganism, Druidism, Religious Studies – Science & Religion

    The Druids are not just a fictional group of magic wielders in funny hats, but a people of ancient Celtic cultures that prosper to this day. If you are looking for a short, accessible guide to the history and way of life of the Druid people, Ilene Birkwood offers an easy to understand introduction to Druidry in The Druids: An Informal Read. Druidry is not a religion like some may think, but a way of life through peace and preservation of nature.

    Druids have seen a surge in numbers in recent years as a result of people around the globe feeling dissatisfied in a world continually damaged by pollution, greed, and war. These people wish to promote a more peaceful and simpler way of life. Birkwood’s guide touches on different areas of the culture throughout the long history of the druids, such as their education system, various sacred sites, history of persecution, and, yes, their roles as witches. Birkwood even shows us how Druidry is practiced today.

    Indeed, the group has a rich history and culture, and this short book only brushes the surface of these fascinating people. Birkwood wrote the book because she intended to create an introduction to the subject that was quick and easy to read—and she’s succeeded. Her passion for the topic leads her on a two-year journey of researching and traveling to various druid sites. After setting the book down, readers will yearn to learn more. Thankfully, the index is an excellent resource and can be used as a jumping-off point for those whose curiosity is piqued by Birkwood’s endeavor.

    Especially in the chapter on the Druid education system, Birkwood’s research is well developed and an intriguing read. The overview of famous druid sites, including the most famous, Stonehenge, will inspire wanderlust in all readers. Though Stonehenge is a breathtaking and mysterious landmark, the other druid sites described are even more exciting because they are mostly unknown to the general public and will encourage further research and perhaps exploration for those so inclined.

    Ilene Birkwood is also the author of her New Zealand Mystery series, including What to do About Emma and Deadly Deception, and a memoir, The Second Torpedo, concerning her time in WWII. Birkwood, a U.K. native, has worked in Silicon Valley and lived in New Zealand for fourteen years. Her work has been translated into many languages as well.

    If you are looking to dive into the infinite and diverse world of history, a study of the rich archives and dynamic culture of Druids is the perfect place to start. Ilene Birkwood’s The Druids: An Informal Read is just the right hook for history lovers and those who may be interested in dipping their toes into the subject. When all is said and done, every reader is sure to want more from Ilene Birkwood – and her druids!

     

     

     

     

     

  • MOURNING DOVE by Claire Fullerton – Southern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, Saga Fiction

    MOURNING DOVE by Claire Fullerton – Southern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, Saga Fiction

    Camille Crossan appears to be living an idyllic life in Claire Fullerton’s poignant, evocative novel, Mourning Dove.  Living in a superbly appointed mansion in “magnolia-lined and manicured” Memphis during the 1960s and 1970s, Camille’s family life shimmers with Southern charm.  Her mother, Posey, usually outfitted in a Lily Pulitzer shift, Pappagallo shoes, and a signature shade of pink lipstick, is a beauty with the wryest sense of humor and steel determination.

    As a young girl, Camille, known as Millie, sees how those in her mother’s social orbit are captivated by her aura, how men are easily seduced by her flirtatious charm. Society is a game played by those who know its rules, and Posey means to win. Every time.  She, however, isn’t even the charismatic one in the family – that’s Finley, Millie’s older brother, who brims with intelligence, startling good looks, and messianic magnetism. A peek beneath the shiny surface of gracious Southern living, however, reveals enormous cracks in the foundation of the Crossan family.  One of the first things the adult Millie tells us about her brother is that he is dead.  She takes the reader back, though, to their childhood and coming of age, a tumultuous journey that both binds and separates the siblings.

    During her first decade, Millie’s family was living in Minneapolis with her tender-hearted, intellectual father who succumbed to alcoholism. Loss of money and, worse, the accompanying loss of social status, motivates Posey to uproot her children and move them to her childhood home in Memphis, a palatial mansion filled with antiques and portraits of forebears. It’s a volatile time, inside and outside the house, as centuries-old Southern traditions clash with the youth counterculture.

    Millie watches as her mother holds court during daily cocktail hours, a prospective second husband soon on the reel, and Finley, a gifted guitarist, plunges into the local music scene. But what role will she play? It’s difficult for her to see herself entirely separate from her brother for whom she has, “…a love devoid of envy, tied up in shared survival and my inability to see myself as anything more than the larger-than-life Finley’s little sister.”  Millie will grapple with her identity and question her destiny, whether she’ll be a bride in the Southern belle mode of her mother or if she’ll be the blossom that falls far from the magnolia tree. Meanwhile, Finley’s charisma both explodes and implodes in shocking and dangerous ways as he becomes revered by a group of people with no connection to the gentrified life. Like Millie, the reader is transfixed and apprehensive about where this less-traveled road will take Finley. Although the reader knows his grim fate from the outset of the book, his storyline is so engrossing that no drama is lost.

    Author, Claire Fullerton, is an enchantress with prose. The writing in this novel will cause you to stop, reread sentences, savor them, and note their architecture. Scenes sparkle as she masterfully summons moods and atmosphere. The reader can see Millie’s lovely but haunting home, and smell the rich fragrance of dogwood on a soft spring day. Fullerton has a keen ear for witty, authentic dialogue, and she deftly reveals much about personalities via conversation. It’s difficult to take leave of such a vivid, fully realized world. Fortunately for readers, Fullerton has written several books, opportunities to spend more time in her richly crafted worlds.

    Mourning Dove won First Place in the CIBA 2018 Somerset Awards for Literary Fiction.

  • BALLAST POINT BREAKDOWN by Corey Lynn Fayman – Noir, Scuba Diving, Crime/Action/Adventure

    BALLAST POINT BREAKDOWN by Corey Lynn Fayman – Noir, Scuba Diving, Crime/Action/Adventure

    Secrets buried at sea have a grave tendency to resurface in time. The incident happened twenty years ago. A Naval exercise has gone wrong at a rocky point near San Diego. Not just wrong, it was a complete Ballast Point Breakdown.  Butch Fleetwood participated in that Naval exercise. He was a rebel. After so many years, Butch Fleetwood is an urgent problem for P.I. Rolly Waters now, even though Butch Fleetwood is dead.

    There’s a well-attended party at the San Diego Bay Admirals Club. Guests are enjoying a celebration of the Navy’s top-secret dolphin divers program on the brink of its retirement, and the pending release of the trained dolphins. The sounds of music and conversation fill the air. Then the sound of a motor dominates. A speedboat traveling the Bay approaches fast and crashes the party, right through the frontage windows. Janis Withers crawls out from the explosive blaze, and with her last breath, shouts that Arion has returned.

    P.I. Rolly Waters wasn’t at the party, but heard about it from a fellow musician who was playing the gig. Rolly is hired to investigate and soon connects Butch Fleetwood’s dog tags to Janis. He had been one of the first Navy divers working in the secret dolphin program. The local police and the FBI are wary as Rolly uncovers clues about several prominent, and also some shadowy individuals. The Navy is not happy that Rolly is asking questions about Arion. With so much against him, Rolly incurs insults and much worse. He views the abuses as expressions of the other person’s fears. What’s worse are the dire threats he faces. Despite the questions and deterrence from the authorities, this determined musician/P.I. follows the trail to its exciting crescendo.

    This is the fourth novel in the Rolly Waters mystery series, and author, Corey Lynn Fayman paints fascinating glimpses into the world of music and into the contrasting world of Navy programs. This book is a refreshing and contemporary remake of the classic P.I. Genre, including a thrilling and diverse group of supporting characters and suspects. The narration is crisp and bold and is part of the driving force that moves the plot forward at a high velocity.

    Building suspense into a real page-turner is this author’s forte, and the resolution at the end is nothing short of breathtaking. Rolly Waters reveals that what can be seen on the surface may be a mere reflection of what someone designs. He digs deep to uncover what really happened so long ago. Seeing through the murky water of lies, he finds a wave no one was prepared to ride.

     

  • DHARMA, A REKHA RAO MYSTERY by Vee Kumari – Cozy Mystery, Female Sleuth, Multi-Cultural Mystery

    DHARMA, A REKHA RAO MYSTERY by Vee Kumari – Cozy Mystery, Female Sleuth, Multi-Cultural Mystery

    A Blue and Gold Badge for M & M Mystery and Mayhem 2019 Grand Prize Dharma A Rekha Rao Mystery

    A complex murder mystery always requires a little spice. In Dharma, A Rekha Rao Mystery, that extra seasoning is provided by the casting of an Indian American woman as the amateur sleuth, despite her realistic fears for her personal safety.

    Professor Rekha Rao is no Bollywood Mighty Girl. She’s a whip-smart American-born 32-year-old college instructor who must deal with her own PTSD after the murder of her father and her unstoppable passion for releasing the man wrongly convicted of her father’s slaying. That obsession is the reason Rekha was dismissed from her old teaching position. The scene is set for deep, personal involvement in the murder of a colleague, a fellow professor who is killed. And a rare, centuries-old statue excavated from an archeological dig in India is the murder weapon.

    When Rekha, an expert in the art of ancient India, is asked by the Pasadena police for some background on the statue of Durga, a well-known goddess in India’s rich religious tapestry, she’s not content to limit her investigation to the narrow role assigned to her. Despite the handsome police detective’s warning to not continue the investigation, she turns over every rock to look for answers. She soon uncovers a galaxy of possible suspects: friends, colleagues, and students – many of whom may have motives to see harm done to the seemingly beloved professor. Art theft, a closeted gay man, a hidden affair, and even a little cross-dressing make their way into the mountain of evidence as Rekha works through territory that the police have not yet uncovered.

    Rekha Rao is a well-drawn character with many facets to her personality. Her Indian heritage is evident in her food tastes, decorations, and family values. Still, she is clearly a modern American woman making her way in a very different culture. Rekha sets out to solve the mystery despite the fear that someone is stalking her – even as she stalks them.

    Dharma, A Rekha Rao Mystery will also provide readers with a glimpse into the religious history of India’s gods and rich mythology. This is one of the hidden treats that makes the novel an enjoyable read for mystery lovers everywhere.

    Dharma, A Rekha Rao Mystery won the Grand Prize for Mystery & Mayhem in the 2019 CIBAs!

     

     

  • UNDER the APPROACHING DARK: The King’s Greatest Enemy by Anna Belfrage – Historical/Biographical Fiction, Medieval Fiction, Medieval Romance

    UNDER the APPROACHING DARK: The King’s Greatest Enemy by Anna Belfrage – Historical/Biographical Fiction, Medieval Fiction, Medieval Romance

    Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragedy of Edward the Second (1592) and Derek Jarman’s film (Edward II, 1991) fans will want to sit up and take notice of how Anna Belfrage navigates her way through this installment of the Under the Approaching Dark, the third book in The King’s Greatest Enemy series. With a vast cast and two kings from the same family to deal with, the challenges were immense. And she’s succeeded.

    The narrative is built around two males – decades apart – who may or may not be alive or dead. Four-year-old Tom arrives at the home of his mother, Kit, and father, Adam – a knight of the realm – in a recently exhumed coffin. No one wants to believe the lad is dead, and William (a vicar; Adam’s brother) recommends not opening the lid to view the rotting remains but assures one and all that the corpse is most certainly the couple’s eldest boy. But Kit never gives up hope.

    The second male, King Edward II, also has difficulty staying alive or dead. Deposed for outlandish behavior in the bedroom and at court, his long-suffering wife Isabella teams up with Roger Mortimer to rule the country and place Edward III on the throne while yet a teenager. To add further twists to the plot, Edward of Carnarvon – after reportedly being killed while under arrest – is provided a resurrection and exile to France.

    Enemies to both Edwards abound. Henry of Lancaster is afraid of losing a considerable amount of land if peace is reached with the Scots and Godfrey of Broseley delights in inflicting pain and torture on anyone who would dare stand in his way to power and riches – man or woman. Kit’s half-sister Alicia is deft at playing both sides to her advantage. But her sibling is not fooled.

    History buffs and devotees of political intrigue will enjoy this generously written account of the royals struggling to stay on the throne even as some of those in their court change allegiances whenever they see an opportunity for personal gain. Belfrage’s sense of pace, in-depth characterization of the principals – coupled with a few surprises along the treacherous journey to safety and security with the minimum of bloodshed – is a remarkable achievement. Her ability to convincingly weave together so many people and narrative threads will keep readers’ interest high and encourage them to snap up the next volume in the series.

    Under the Approaching Dark won first place in the CIBA 2018 CHAUCER Awards for Early Historical Fiction.