LOVE MEDIEVAL MAGIC AND MYSTERY?
Then the Mariana de la Mar books might be for you.
It is Christmas 1377, and for Mariana, abducted and sold as a sex-slave at the age of fourteen, the Wheel of Fortune seems to have turned at last.
Now twenty and in Paris, she is intent on pursuing the studies she began as a child even if that means dressing as a boy (no women are admitted to the lectures). But then Jaquet, a fellow-student, is accused of murdering his alchemist uncle, and in order to save Jaquet she sets out to discover what really happened.
Her investigations bring her into contact with the highest and lowest in the land. She meets and discusses the case (and her own situation) with the Holy Roman Emperor, in Paris on a Christmas state visit, and becomes friends with his daughter, Princess Anna, who a couple of years later marries the boy-king Richard II and becomes Queen of England. At the opposite end of the social spectrum, Mariana is soon on familiar terms with the feared Albanian king of the Paris underworld and the abbesses of two of the city's most notorious brothels. She also manages to fall foul of the Church and has to leave Paris in a hurry - heading for England, and her next adventure (THE UNDEPARTED DEAD).
Then the Mariana de la Mar books might be for you.
It is Christmas 1377, and for Mariana, abducted and sold as a sex-slave at the age of fourteen, the Wheel of Fortune seems to have turned at last.
Now twenty and in Paris, she is intent on pursuing the studies she began as a child even if that means dressing as a boy (no women are admitted to the lectures). But then Jaquet, a fellow-student, is accused of murdering his alchemist uncle, and in order to save Jaquet she sets out to discover what really happened.
Her investigations bring her into contact with the highest and lowest in the land. She meets and discusses the case (and her own situation) with the Holy Roman Emperor, in Paris on a Christmas state visit, and becomes friends with his daughter, Princess Anna, who a couple of years later marries the boy-king Richard II and becomes Queen of England. At the opposite end of the social spectrum, Mariana is soon on familiar terms with the feared Albanian king of the Paris underworld and the abbesses of two of the city's most notorious brothels. She also manages to fall foul of the Church and has to leave Paris in a hurry - heading for England, and her next adventure (THE UNDEPARTED DEAD).
