Showing results by author "Joanna Courtney" in Literature & Fiction

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, a flushed and nervous Cora MacDuff waits to marry her sweetheart, Macbeth. But her dreams are about to be stolen from her as the night she was hoping for turns into a brutal slaughter. In order to reclaim the life she was promised, she will learn to use every weapon at her disposal - even her son.

The world knows Ophelia as Hamlet's troubled lover, but behind Shakespeare's tragedy stands a real woman. This is her story.... The second novel in the new historical fiction series from the best-selling author of The Queens of Conquest, Joanna Courtney's new trilogy unearths the real women behind Shakespeare's most infamous queens. If you love Elizabeth Chadwick and Anne O'Brien you will adore Joanna Courtney.

She holds the fate of England in her heart.... The Queens of the Conquest trilogy. It's 1066. Three Queens. One Crown. As a young woman in England's royal court, Edyth, granddaughter of Lady Godiva, dreams of marrying for love. But political matches are rife while King Edward is still without an heir and the future of England is uncertain.

Elizaveta is princess of Kiev, but that doesn't stop her chasing adventure. Defying conventions, she rides the rapids of the Dneiper alongside her royal brothers and longs to rule in her own right as a queen. Elizaveta meets her match when the fearsome Viking warrior Harald Hardrada arrives at her father's court seeking fame and fortune. He entrusts Elizaveta to be his treasure keeper, to hold the keys to his ever-growing wealth - and eventually to his heart.

Welcome to the Iron Age, a time of which little has been written and where women ruled, druids and paganism grew in power and men were considered useful, but of limited capacity. There, we meet Cordelia, youngest of three sisters but soon to be proven the strongest.

A crown can be won; blood cannot be changed. The Conqueror's Queen is the third title in Joanna Courtney's sweeping historical series, The Queens of Conquest. William of Normandy is a rough man, but what more can you expect of an illegitimate son trying to muscle his way into a dukedom? After a violent start to their courtship, Mathilda of Flanders discovers William to be a man of unexpected sensitivity.

Consecrated at birth as a royal goddess, Cleopatra learns early on from her father's experience that to rule means to fight. Politically astute, her deep love for Egypt means she'll do everything in her power to retain its autonomy from the all-devouring Romans. Julius Caesar is a legendary warrior whose might helped secure the Egyptian throne for Cleopatra's father. Years later, when he encounters the now Queen of Egypt, it is more than a meeting of rulers - it is a meeting of souls.

At age fourteen, Princess Salome knows she will soon be ready for marriage - one that will satisfy the ambitions of her mother Herodias. But it is Herodias's own sudden remarriage that will change Salome's life in a way she did not expect. Uprooted to Judea, Salome finds herself in a land full of strange people - none more so than the prophet John 'the Baptiser', who condemns her mother and stepfather for their respective divorces. When John is imprisoned for inciting rebellion, Herodias forces Salome to ask for his head as a gift for her dancing.