RetailThe riveting true story of mother-and-daughter queens Catherine de' Medici and Marguerite de Valois, whose wildly divergent personalities and turbulent relationship changed the shape of their tempestuous and dangerous century. Set in magnificent Renaissance France, this is the story of two remarkable women, a mother and daughter driven into opposition by a terrible betrayal that threatened to destroy the realm. Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for thirty years. Her youngest daughter Marguerite, the glamorous "Queen Margot," was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control. When Catherine forces the Catholic Marguerite to marry her Protestant cousin Henry of Navarre against her will, and then uses her opulent Parisian wedding as a means of luring his followers to their deaths, she creates not only savage conflict within France but also a potent rival within her own family. Rich in detail and vivid prose, Goldstone's narrative unfolds as a thrilling historical epic. Treacherous court politics, poisonings, inter-national espionage, and adultery form the background to a story that includes such celebrated figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Nostradamus. The Rival Queens is a dangerous tale of love, betrayal, ambition, and the true nature of courage, the echoes of which still resonate.**

From the author of The Rival Queens, a lively group biography of Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, and her four daughters, whose lives paint a vivid picture of the upheavals of 17th-century EuropeSet in the tumultuous seventeenth century, DAUGHTERS OF THE WINTER QUEEN tells the delicious and dramatic stories of Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen—granddaughter of the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots—and her four unforgettable daughters. Like Austen's Bennets or Louisa May Alcott's Marches, each sister had a unique attribute that set her apart from the rest: Elizabeth was the scholar, Louise the artist, Henrietta the beauty, and Sophia the writer. But unlike those fictional heroines, the daughters of the Winter Queen lived on a much grander scale. Their backdrop was all of Europe and the twists of their stories trace the course of history itself.Their journey begins in Scotland and England and sweeps through the great courts and palaces of Europe...

"Attention, 'Game of Thrones' fans: The most enjoyably sensational aspects of medieval politics—double-crosses, ambushes, bizarre personal obsessions, lunacy and naked self-interest—are in abundant evidence in Nancy Goldstone's The Maid and the Queen." (Laura Miller, Salon.com) Joan of Arc, the brave peasant girl who heard the voices of angels and helped restore her king to the throne of France, astonished her contemporaries and continues to fascinate us today. Until now, though, her relationship with Yolande of Aragon, the ambitious and beautiful queen of Sicily—mother-in-law to the dauphin—has been little known. In a stunning work filled with intrigue, madness, and mysticism, Nancy Goldstone solves the thrilling mystery by showing that if you pry open the Queen's secrets, you will find the Maid's. Caught in the complex dynastic battle of the Hundred Years War,...

The riveting history of a beautiful queen, a shocking murder, a papal trial — and a reign as triumphant as any in the Middle Ages. On March 15, 1348, twenty-two-year-old Joanna I, Queen of Naples, stood trial for the murder of her husband before the Pope and his court in Avignon. Determined to defend herself, Joanna won her acquittal against overwhelming odds. Victorious, she returned to Naples and ruled over one of Europe's most prestigious courts for the next three decades — until she herself was killed.Courageous and determined, Joanna was the only female monarch in her time to rule in her own name. She was widely admired: dedicated to the welfare of her subjects, she reduced crime, built hospitals and churches, and encouraged the licensing of female physicians. A procession of the most important artists and writers of the time frequented her glittering court. But she never quite escaped the stain of her husband's death, and the turmoil of the...