They Fought in the Creature Features: Interviews with 23 Classic Horror, Science Fiction and Serial Stars
Book
These men and women saved the planet from aliens, behemoths, monsters, zombies, and other bloated,...
Spielberg
TV Show Watch
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his colleagues discuss the classic movies that made him famous,...
documentary biography
Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions That Forged Modern Europe
Book
'Never before had the world seen four such giants co-existing. Sometimes friends, more often...
Transmission in Motion: The Technologizing of Dance
Book
How can various technologies, from the more conventional to the very new, be used to archive, share...
The Paragone in Nineteenth-Century Art
Book
Offering an examination of the paragone, meaning artistic rivalry, in nineteenth-century France and...
Posthuman Personhood
Book
Posthuman Personhood takes up the ethical challenge posed by Francis Fukuyama's work, Our Posthuman...
Arts of the Medieval Cathedrals: Studies on Architecture, Stained Glass and Sculpture in Honor of Anne Prache
Kathleen Nolan, Dany Sandron, Carol Neuman De Vegvar and Jennifer M. Feltman
Book
The touchstones of Gothic monumental art in France - the abbey church of Saint-Denis and the...
The fact that I haven’t (yet) read books 2-5 has made no difference at all to my great reading enjoyment, so this can be read as a one off (but why would you do that? Books 1 and 6 are fab, so I’ll be reading books 2-5 without a doubt).
Bruno is working undercover for Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, and they hope to stop what becomes known as The Babington Plot - a plot to kill Elizabeth I, break Mary Queen of Scots out of prison and put her on England’s throne instead. This is all about Elizabeth’s claim to be queen. Henry VIII has disowned her as illegitimate when Anne was beheaded, and she was a Protestant to boot! Babington and his crew are staunch catholics, and they want a catholic on the throne. Mary fits the bill.
Francis Walsingham is desperate to find an excuse to dispose of Mary, and Babington is providing the goods. There is a secret letter exchange going on between the plotters and that Walsingham knows about, but he needs to catch them in the act - and he needs to ensure that Mary implicates herself completely.
This is all historical fact, as is Bruno’s existence, and I think that’s what puts the icing on the cake for me. I love historical fiction that brings real characters to life on the page. Bruno is a great character - he’s intelligent, funny and emotional. Basically, he’s a great character to build a story around.
So much research must have gone in to this book, and I really appreciate that. The side characters add couloir and substance to the whole story.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this book, and I’ve now given myself the rather enjoyable task of catching up with Bruno!
The Work-Family Interface in Global Context
Karen Korabik, Zeynep Aycan and Roya Ayman
Book
Based on a sweeping, ten country study, The Work-Family Interface in Global Context comprises the...
The Routledge Handbook of International Beat Literature
Book
There was a time when "the Beats" seemed a familiar, even fixed, pantheon: Kerouac, Ginsberg,...