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More by Nicole Galland
THE FOOL’S TALE
Wales, 1198. A time of treachery, passion, and uncertainty. Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon struggles to protect his small kingdom from foes outside and inside his borders. Pressured into a marriage of political convenience, he weds the headstrong young Isabel Mortimer, niece of his powerful English nemesis. Gwirion, the king’s oldest and oddest friend, has a particular reason to hate Mortimers, and immediately employs his royally sanctioned mischief to disquiet the new queen.
Through strength of character, Isabel wins her husband’s grudging respect, but finds the Welsh court backward and barbaric—especially Gwirion, against whom she engages in a relentless battle of wills. When Gwirion and Isabel’s mutual animosity is abruptly transformed, the king finds himself as threatened by his loved ones as he is by the many enemies who menace his crown.
A masterful debut by a gifted storyteller, The Fool’s Tale combines vivid historical fiction, compelling political intrigue, and passionate romance to create an intimate drama of three individuals bound—and undone—by love and loyalty.
REVENGE OF THE ROSE
An impoverished, idealistic young knight in rural Burgundy, Willem of Dole greets with astonishment his summons to the court of Konrad, Holy Roman Emperor, whose realm spans half of Europe. Immediately overwhelmed by court affairs, Willem submits to the relentless tutelage of Konrad’s minstrel, the mischievous, mysterious Jouglet. With Jouglet’s help, Willem quickly rises in the Emperor’s esteem . . .
. . . But when Willem’s sister Lienor becomes a prospect for the role of Empress, the sudden elevation of two sibling “nobodies” causes panic in a royal court fueled by gossip, secrets, treachery, and lies. Three desperate men in Konrad’s inner circle frantically vie to control the game of politics, yet Jouglet the minstrel is somehow always one step ahead of them.
Brilliantly reimagining the lush, conniving heart of thirteenth-century Europe’s greatest empire, Revenge of the Rose is a novel rich in irony and wit that revels in the politics, passions, and peccadilloes of the medieval court.
CROSSED: A TALE OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE
In the year 1202, thousands of crusaders gather in Venice, preparing to embark for Jerusalem to free the Holy City from Muslim rule. Among them is an irreverent British vagabond who has literally lost his way, rescued from damnation by a pious German knight. Despite the vagabond’s objections, they set sail with dedicated companions and a beautiful, mysterious Arab “princess.”
But the divine light guiding this “righteous” campaign soon darkens as the mission sinks ever deeper into disgrace, moral turpitude, and almost farcical catastrophe. As Christians murder Christians in the Adriatic port city of Zara, tragic events are set in motion that will ultimately lead to the shocking and shameful fall of Constantinople.
Impeccably researched and beautifully told, Nicole Galland’s Crossed is a sly tale of the disastrous Fourth Crusade—and of the hopeful, brave, and driven people who were trapped by a corrupt cause and a furious battle that were beyond their comprehension or control.
I, IAGO
I, Iago is an ingenious, brilliantly crafted novel that allows one of literature’s greatest villains—the deceitful schemer Iago, from Shakespeare’s immortal tragedy Othello—to take center stage in order to reveal his “true” motivations.
From earliest childhood, the precocious boy called Iago had inconvenient tendencies toward honesty—a failing that made him an embarrassment to his family and an outcast in the corrupt culture of glittering Renaissance Venice. Embracing military life as an antidote to the frippery of Venetian society, Iago won the love of the beautiful Emilia and the regard of Venice’s revered General Othello. After years of abuse and rejection, Iago was poised to achieve everything he had ever fought for and dreamed of . . .
But a cascade of unexpected deceptions propels him on a catastrophic quest for righteous vengeance, contorting his moral compass until he has betrayed his closest friends and family and sealed his own fate as one of the most notorious villains of all time.
Inspired by Othello—a timeless tale of friendship and treachery, love and jealousy—Galland’s I, Iago sheds fascinating new light on a complex soul, and on the conditions and fateful events that helped to create a monster.