Posts by Vicki J Kondelik

The Prophet is a mystery set in a small Ohio town about two estranged brothers, one a bail bondsman and the other a high school football coach, whose sister was murdered as a teenager. When another teenage girl is murdered, the wounds of the past resurface and the two brothers must work together to catch a killer.

The Rival Queens is an entertainingly-written biography of two powerful women in 16th century France: the ruthless Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, who ruled the country for decades during the reigns of three of her sons, and her youngest daughter, the intelligent, courageous Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre.

Signora da Vinci is an imaginative retelling, more fantasy than historical fiction, of the life of Leonardo da Vinci's mother, Caterina. In Robin Maxwell's novel, Caterina is the daughter of an alchemist/apothecary in a small town near Florence. After a brief romance with Piero da Vinci, a young man from a much wealthier family, she gives birth to Leonardo, who is taken away by his father's family the day after his birth. In order to be near her son, Caterina disguises herself as a man and goes to Florence, where she has many adventures and takes delight in her brilliant son's art and inventions.

In Roman Blood, the first of a mystery series by Steven Saylor, Gordianus the Finder, an ancient Roman detective, helps Cicero defend a man accused of killing his father. But he finds evidence that might lead to trouble with a cruel dictator. The series is rich with details of the daily life, the political intrigues, and the legal system of Rome.

Suspense and Sensibility is part of a mystery series where Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy from Pride and Prejudice meet characters from Jane Austen's other novels. Kitty Bennet from Pride and Prejudice becomes engaged to Harry Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility, but he begins acting strangely as soon as they announce their engagement. Do an antique mirror and a portrait of a roguish ancestor have to do with it?

Tasha Alexander's mystery series features an unconventional Victorian widow, Lady Emily Ashton. In this, the third book in the series, a murder investigation leads Emily to the cafes and glittering ballrooms of 1890s Vienna.

Global Jane Austen is a collection of essays that examines the relationship between Austen’s admirers and her works, all over the world. It includes articles about websites and works of fan fiction devoted to her and her characters, adaptations of her works, the tourist industry in the places where she lived, and responses to her novels in non-English speaking countries.

A beautifully-written historical novel, with some fantasy elements, about a young man, born in the bell tower of a Swiss mountain village in the eighteenth century, who grows up with a beautiful singing voice and an extraordinary sense of hearing. He falls in love with a young woman from a wealthy family, but he has a secret he keeps from the woman he loves.

In the first of a new mystery series set in ancient Rome, Flavia Albia, adopted daughter of author Lindsey Davis' popular series detective Marcus Didius Falco, investigates a series of random poisonings.

The Witch Hunter's Tale is the third in a mystery series featuring midwife Bridget Hodgson in York, England, during the English Civil War of the 1640s. A bitterly cold winter is blamed on witches. Will Bridget be able to stop the witch hunt before she, or someone close to her, is accused of witchcraft?