Author: Ambrosia

Saturday Sanctuary #2

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The Saturday Sanctuary will be a Weekly Writing Post. I will ask something or give a topic. Sometimes it will be short, sometimes it might be longer. The idea is just to write! So others can read. I thought it would be a great idea for a Book Blog to do something about writing. We are bloggers after all so we must have some enjoyment of writing too! So hop on in and Join the Saturday Sanctuary, grab our link and our picture and post your replies here. Make sure you visit others blogs out there and leave comments. Mostly have fun.

What Color are you today? And why?

Today I have to say I am Green. It’s a nice color not to dreary but not as cheerful as say Yellow. I am green today because while I am not depressed I don’t feel like I could take on the world. I had a trip yesterday which should have been simple and easy, I went to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately I ended up having a panic attack because of all the noise, and screaming children and the people. I wanted to yell at them to get out of my dang way and stop cutting me off. I did manage to refrain from the yelling. So that was a good thing. So yes over all I am Green.



Booking Through Thursday –

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Suggested by JM:

“Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation.

That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading.

Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?

I have read some bad books all the way through. But in general if the book is that horrible I do not read it. If I really can find nothing at all to hold my interest I chuck it aside and call it good. I agree that life is to short and there are to many good books to read to stay on the bad ones!

Wicked Wednesday #13

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Wicked Wednesday a place to be wicked to other book readers and make them get those TBR piles growing. The concept is simple. Pick a book or two and tell s about them. If its one you read tell us what you liked. If its one you found tell us about that to. Than leave a comment to let us know where to find your Wicked Wednesday titles. Make sure to link back in your posts for other people to follow Wicked Wednesday.


Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

Book Review: Courtesans by Katie Hickman

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During the course of the nineteenth century, a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence, and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives — and those of other people — and made the world do their will.

Extremely accomplished, well-educated, and unusually literate, courtesans exerted an incredible influence as leaders of society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world — the demimonde — complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette, and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue, and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.


I have long been curious about Courtesans; this book is a great one for anyone else who has the same curiousness. Katie Hickman does a fantastic job of showing you the powerful world of being a Courtesan; it is not an unknown adage that the most powerful woman in a kingdom was not the Queen but the Kings Mistress.

Much is the same about the most powerful Courtesans in the land. They had money and power and all sorts of other things that made them societies most wanted. All of this for essentially working in the oldest profession in the world.

But these women weren’t the kind of ladies you would see walking on the street. They were well educated, witty, beautiful and used to the finest things in life. This book was a fantastic read for anyone who is interested in the topic. And even for someone who may not know that much about it. Pick this one up and delve into the steamy underside of Sex, Money and Power.

Teaser Tuesday #26

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TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to: Grab your current read.Let the book fall open to a random page.Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!Please avoid spoilers!
“Get Mr. Hargraves at once, ” I commanded. My butler did not hesitate, closed the door so he could dress, and was ready to leave the house in fewer than three minutes. My apperance in the servants’ hall caused quite a commotion. ~ Pg.49 A Posioned Season by Tasha Alexander



Musing Monday #26

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Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about your bookshelf…

Does your house have a communal bookshelf? If not, is your bookshelf centrally located so everyone has access to it?

I am the only one in the house who really reads. That being said my book room and my overflow shelves can be reached by the hubby. He has a few books on the shelves but otherwise it’s all me. Anyone who comes over is welcome to have access to the books. I am happy to share reading with anyone and everyone!

Book Review: To The Tower Born by Robin Maxwell

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The author of the highly praised The Wild Irish is back with a mesmerizing novel that probes one of the most intriguing unsolved mysteries in history — what happened to the lost princes of York

Debated for more than five centuries, the disappearance of the young princes Edward and Richard from the Tower of London in 1483 has stirred the imaginations of numerous writers from Shakespeare to Josephine Tey and posited the question: Was Richard III the boys’ murderer, or was he not? In a captivating novel rich in mystery, color, and historical lore, Robin Maxwell offers a new, controversial perspective on this tantalizing enigma.

The events are witnessed through the eyes of quick-witted Nell Caxton, only daughter of the first English printer, William Caxton, and Nell’s dearest friend, “Bessie,” daughter of the King of England, sister to the little princes, and founding ancestress of the Tudor dynasty.

With great bravery and heart, the two friends navigate this dark and dangerous medieval landscape in which the king’s death sets off a battle among the most scheming, ambitious, and murderous men and women of their age, who will stop at nothing to possess the throne of England.


Have you ever wondered just how the Tudor line came to be the one that ruled? The War of the Roses raged on for a very long time. The House of York and the House of Lancaster were bitter enemies. For a while though and so they thought they were secured it was the house of York and their King Edward on the throne of England.

This book is fantastic and exiting you follow “Bessie” who became the ultimate founder of the house of Tudor through her life. You meet her shortly after her son Arthur has died and than backtrack to her younger life. It is fantastic and thrilling to see these events through the eyes of Bessie and her best friend Nell Caxton.

Once King Edward dies it certainly is mysterious how two Princes of royal blood go into the Tower never to be heard from again. Robin Maxwell tackles just one thing that may have happened to him, but also the most logical. If you’re a fan of the War of Roses, or the Tudor line this is a book you should read. There is romance, intrigue, murder and mystery. There is a little bit of something for everybody and a good helping of well researched history.
Text Color

Book Review:Murder of Helen Jewett by Patricia Cline Cohen

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In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett.

From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City’s elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.

But she was to meet her match–and her nemesis–in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America’s burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society’s seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett’s lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators.

With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.



As far as murder mysteries go I have to say this is on the top of the list. Although perhaps a mystery is the wrong word for Murder of Helen Jewett it is a good book. You have elements of everything in it. From Romance to betrayal and everything in between. This review is a little short as I read this book a while back with some of my others and didn’t have a chance to post the review. But I do recommend this book if you like historical thriller. It will keep you on your toes and the information is very good.



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