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Dark Medieval and Renaissance Romance
Spiced with Political Intrigue
After fourteen years of unusual work in exotic and sometimes
dangerous locales across the globe, Xenia Navarre decided to pursue her lifelong
dream of becoming a professional author. She writes dark and sexy
historical fiction set
in the medieval and Renaissance world, from pre-Norman England to the elegant court of
Eleanor of Aquitaine, and from the exotic banks of the Nile during the
Napoleonic conquest to the glittering palaces of Imperial Russia.
The Devil's Mistress
Set in the
glittering world of Renaissance England, THE DEVIL’S MISTRESS is a dark and sexy
Tudor romance about a reluctant lady assassin who’s blackmailed to poison Anne
Boleyn.
In 1528, revelry
consumes Henry Tudor’s Christmas court. But beneath this festive façade seethes
a viper’s pit of deception. Henry conspires to divorce his Spanish Queen—a
fervent Catholic—and replace her with his alluring Protestant mistress Anne
Boleyn. But Spain will do anything to prevent it. When Spain schemes to poison
the heretic Boleyn, a reluctant lady assassin called the Devil’s Mistress is
blackmailed to do the deed.
Living
breath-to-breath beneath the shadow of violence, Italian perfumer and apothecary
Allegra Grimaldi has sworn never to kill. Clever and wary of men’s designs, she
learned the killing arts under duress from her infamous father, the Hand of
God—a religious assassin who slays evildoers. To escape burning for a crime she
didn’t commit, Allegra pretends to accept the Spanish commission, and disguises
herself in London as the Spanish ambassador's mistress.
When Allegra
warns Anne Boleyn of the threat, she rouses suspicion from Anne’s bastard
brother—the valiant French soldier Sir Joscelin Boleyn, who has sworn to protect
his infamous sister. To avert a disaster that would change the face of Europe,
this stalwart soldier of incorruptible integrity and the fallen woman who
breathes deception must learn to trust each other, and discover the truth of
love.
(For an excerpt from
The Devil's Mistress, click here.)
The Devil's Virtue
The year is 1174. The house of Plantagenet stands divided.
Civil war rages around the treacherous court-in-exile of Queen Eleanor of
Aquitaine. To restore peace to a sundered realm and gain salvation for two
troubled souls, a convent-reared noblewoman with a dangerous secret and the
disgraced Muslim knight called the Devil of Damascus find forgiveness and
redemption through love.
Jervaise de Vaux is an embittered Crusader, scarred body
and soul by a lifetime of war, who has abandoned his faith in the Christian God.
Devastated by the murder of his pregnant wife and the slaughter of Saracens at
his hand that resulted, Jervaise hides his identity and seemingly embraces his
dishonor as the Devil of Damascus, selling his sword to the highest bidder.
The bastard son of a Norman duke and a Saracen slave-girl, Jervaise is stunned
when his war-born friendship with King Henry II elevates the disgraced knight to
his father's title. Claiming the impoverished duchy of Ormonde, Jervaise
must seize his last chance for salvation and wed a wealthy heiress to save his
suffering people.
Orphaned heiress Alienore of Lyonstone is no man's object
of pity. As the queen's privy chancellor, she is the only woman among
Eleanor of Aquitaine's council of ministers--and called the queen's most
virtuous lady. In secret, Alienore masquerades as a knight on the tourney
field, defending shamed damsels no proper knight will champion. In her
heart, she defends her mother from a scandal that casts doubt on Alienore's
noble parentage. Through serving the queen, protecting wronged women, and
escaping marriage to the notorious duke of Ormonde, Alienore must prove her
worth to her greatest skeptic--herself.
(For an excerpt from The Devil's
Virtue, click here.)
The Devil's Bargain
Set
on the turbulent shores of Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest, The
Devil's Bargain tells the story of a strong-willed and devious noblewoman
pursued by a terrifying enemy. The future of England depends upon which
man she dares to trust: an enigmatic would-be bishop with a shadowed past,
or the common-born knight of incorruptible integrity who is sworn to serve her nemesis.
Exiled heiress Katrin of Courtenay is
struggling to uphold an impossible charge: defending the unstable
Northumbrian border of 1000 A.D. from encroaching Scots and
savage raiders from the Danelaw. As proud and courageous as any man, the
willful widow has learned she must also be subtle to survive. Against the
dictates of her Christian conscience, she has come to believe manipulation and
deceit are a woman's only true weapons.
Viking-bred bastard Sir Eomond is
the honest, painfully direct and unswerving vassal of Katrin's corrupt uncle:
Earl Rannulf, the devil of Crannhyr. The elegant earl is a cold-blooded
schemer who uses his knowledge of exotic poisons to manipulate those around him. Eomond's loyalty will be tested to
its limits when Rannulf charges him to compel unwilling Katrin to the earl's
decadent court to make the devil's bargain.
Blackmailed by her powerful uncle, Katrin denies her growing passion for the common-born Eomond to undertake a
political marriage with the most reluctant of bridegrooms: the enigmatic
would-be bishop Rafael le Senay, who harbors ambitions for the papal throne. Torn between her secret love for the
legendary knight and her increasing fascination for the brilliant and seductive
Rafael, Katrin finds herself locked in a monumental battle of wills that pits
desire against loyalty, love against honor, and brother against brother,
plunging all of northern England into a treasonous plot to usurp the throne. She must journey through the darkness of deception and one
family's secrets on a quest for redemption from the sins of her past to discover
the truth of love.
(For an excerpt from The
Devil's Bargain, click here.)
Share My Passions...
- Travel:
Italy,
Egypt,
Russia,
Mexico,
The Bahamas, and
the
United
States
- Favorite Works
from historical romance, fantasy, and historical fiction -- read
about mine and tell me about yours...
- My Siberian familiars:
Pandora and
Delilah
- Modern art: Tamara de Lempicka, Amedeo
Modigliani, Gustav Klimt, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mikhail Vrubel
and more. Check out my
favorite museum in my former hometown of Washington,
D.C. at The Phillips
Collection.
- Classical theater:
One of the world’s three foremost Shakespearean
theater companies is the Washington Shakespeare Theater.
- If you're interested in pursuing a career
as a romance writer, check out the national organization for
writers of romance fiction, the Romance Writers of America (RWA)
at www.rwanational.org
- RWA also has a sub-genre chapter for writers of historical romance, Hearts Through
History at
www.heartsthroughhistory.com
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