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The First Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick (from bookmooch)

William Marshal, the younger son of a wealthy family, shows early prowess with a sword and uncommon chivalry, which he puts to good use saving the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Afterward, she makes him arms tutor to her sons, the young princes. Marshal pledges his service to heir Henry and stays with the prince, out of loyalty to Eleanor, throughout Henry’s turbulent manhood and rebellion against his father. When Henry dies, Marshal swears loyalty to Henry’s brother Richard, putting him at odds with his own brother, who is loyal to Prince John. When Richard leaves on crusade and John conspires to take the crown, Marshal must decide between family and honor.

Sand Daughter by Sarah Bryant (from bookmooch)

Khalidah faces an arranged marriage at the behest of her father, a Bedouin Clan chief. But when a mysterious stranger named Sulayman reveals the machinations behind her pending union, she suddenly finds herself a pawn in a deadly plot involving her own feuding tribe and the powerful Templar Knights.

Faced with certain death, Khalidah runs away with Sulayman, a man she barely knows. Their journey, and the desire that grows between them, will thrust Khalidah toward unimaginable adventure, and the echoes of a past that somehow connect her to the Jinn-the mysterious Afghan warriors who may hold the key to the coming battle for the Holy Land.

Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport (from akateeminen kirjakauppa)

On the sweltering summer night of July 16, 1918, in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg, a group of assassins led an unsuspecting Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, the desperately ill Tsarevich, and their four beautiful daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, into a basement room where they were shot and then bayoneted to death.

This is the story of those murders, which ended three hundred years of Romanov rule and set their stamp on an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.

The Last Days of the Romanovs counts down to the last, tense hours of the family’s lives, stripping away the over-romanticized versions of previous accounts. The story focuses on the family inside the Ipatiev House, capturing the oppressive atmosphere and the dynamics of a group—the Romanovs, their servants, and guards—thrown together by extraordinary events.

House of Treason: The Rise & Fall of a Tudor Dynasty by Robert Hutchinson (bought)

King-makers – Conspirators – Criminals – Nobles – Seducers The Howard family – the Dukes of Norfolk – were the wealthiest and most powerful aristocrats in Tudor England, regarding themselves as the true power behind the throne. They were certainly extraordinarily influential, with two Howard women marrying Henry VIII – Anne Boleyn and the fifteen-year-old Catherine Howard. But in the treacherous world of the Tudor court no faction could afford to rest on its laurels. The Howards consolidated their power with an awesome web of schemes and conspiracies but even they could not always hold their enemies at bay. This was a family whose history is marked by treason, beheadings and incarceration – a dynasty whose pride and ambition secured only their downfall.

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr (bought)

Unbeknownst to mortals, a power struggle is unfolding in a world of shadows and danger. After centuries of stability, the balance among the Faery Courts has altered, and Irial, ruler of the Dark Court, is battling to hold his rebellious and newly vulnerable fey together. If he fails, bloodshed and brutality will follow.

Seventeen-year-old Leslie knows nothing of faeries or their intrigues. When she is attracted to an eerily beautiful tattoo of eyes and wings, all she knows is that she has to have it, convinced it is a tangible symbol of changes she desperately craves for her own life.

The tattoo does bring changes—not the kind Leslie has dreamed of, but sinister, compelling changes that are more than symbolic. Those changes will bind Leslie and Irial together, drawing Leslie deeper and deeper into the faery world, unable to resist its allures, and helpless to withstand its perils. . . .

Cry To Heaven by Anne Rice (bought)

Tonio is the son of nobility and a beautiful singer. He dreams and talks of being a singer, but his family scoffs–that profession is for the castrati, not the son of a nobleman. Tonio’s family is complicated, his mother a dark alcoholic who tips between lunacy and stupor, his brother (Carlo) reportedly disowned for seducing a common girl. But Tonio discovers the truth about his brother’s sin and turns to his music to hide his fear and confusion. Tonio half-chooses and is half-forced into castration and begins a lifelong plot to take revenge on Carlo. He realizes at Guido’s conservatory what has happened to him and refuses to sing. Guido is tormented by Tonio withholding his voice, but Tonio leaves the conservatory anyway.

Yet Tonio finds that he now has no place to belong and that his power is building. He returns and begins to sing. His two sides, dark revenge and heroic song battle for control. Tonio begins his journey of stardom and decadence, achieving no balance in his life. His sexuality proves to be a source of great complexity, confusion, and promise. The minute Tonio has sorted out his life and is finally happy, he hears his mother has died and his time has come to confront Carlo.