Michal's Window
By Rachelle Ayala
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 
ISBN: 978-1475081480
Pub. Date: April 12, 2012
Pages: 458
Buy Link: Amazon.com

Review: 

This stunning biblical tale centers on Princess Michal, the daughter of King Saul, as she first meets the shepherd boy/harpist named David, who is arrives at the kingdom to help mend her father who is tormented by evil spirits. The Princess falls in love with David and before long the two are wedded.

Situations occur that causes King Saul to order the death of his son-in-law. Fearing for David's life, Michal helps her husband escape the wrath of her father.

Michal is later reunited with the now King David, but he has changed from the man that she had known. David has several wives and other lovers, but Michal still loves him and is determined to win his heart at all costs.

The Malice of Fortune
By Michael Ennis
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 978-0385536318
Pub. Date: September 11, 2012
Pages: 416
Buy Link: Amazon

Juan, Duke of Gandia, was murdered while on his way to visit his love, Damiata, causing Pope Alexander VI to become emotionally drained as Juan was his favorite son. In another twist, Damiata also went missing the night of Juan's murder, having witnessed her lover's death.

Five years go by and the Pope Alexander VI sends Rodrigo Borgia to find Damiata and bring her to him. The Pope believes that she is responsible for his son's death, but gives her a chance to prove her innocence by finding the real killer. Thinking that she will just run off and hide again, he takes her son Giovanni as leverage.

Damiata heads to Imola, where she finds out there have been a string of similar murders. The bodies have been buried throughout the city and the bodies' parts were specifically arranged to resemble a geometric design. Soon she meets a Florentine diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli who assists her efforts in finding the killer or killers. Now here is another twist, the one and only Leonardo DaVinci, the famous Renaissance painter, is also investigating the murders and DaVinci eventually teams up with them.

North and South
By: Elizabeth Gaskell
Publisher: Dover Publications
ISBN: 9780486479521
Pub Date: June 13, 2012
Pages: 464
Buy Link: Barnes & Nobles

If you are looking for a good read and you enjoy the novels of Jane Austen, then look no further than Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. Written around the same time as Austen’s works, this novel delves deeper into class conflicts, the unions, the hard work of laborers, and even the hero’s inner psyche. The supporting characters are stronger than most of Austen’s and you really grow to care about their struggles.

The main idea of the novel is that a pastor’s daughter, Margaret Hale, is transported along with her ailing mother and now jobless father from her quiet and comfortable home in the south of England to the crowded, dirty, and chaotic north. She must find her spot in this new society, and befriends a mill worker and his dying daughter. Her father starts tutoring a mill master, a man named Thornton, how quickly becomes smitten with the beautiful and headstrong Margaret. She rejects him, however, because she has seen the ordeal that the mill workers are put through.

Midwife of Venice

AUTHOR: Roberta Rich

PUBLISHED BY: Gallery Books

ISBN: 978-1-44516-5747-0

RELEASED DATE: February 2012

PAGES: 344

    Hanna Levi, a Jewish midwife, is known through Venice for helping mothers give birth by using the ‘birthing spoons’ that she designs herself. A Papal forbids any Jews to give medical treatments to Christians, which the rule has never been a problem for Hanna, until a Christian nobleman asks for her help. His wife has been in labor for days and he wants Hanna to help with his son’s birth. In exchange, he’ll pay for husband Isaac’s ransom. Isaac has been captured and forced into slavery in Malta. Hanna must go against her religion to help save her husband.