Monday, August 08, 2011

Another fantastic read...



Man, this summer has offered a lot of great reads, hasn't it??

This is another one not to miss, whether you're a history buff or not. People who have no clue who Anne Boleyn was will still enjoy the novel, just as much as people who are well acquainted with Anne's memory. A lovely, beautiful historical - you'd never guess it was Sandra Byrd's first!

Byrd does Anne, a woman turned queen, a timely justice, I feel, in this story of love, power, authority, grace, rejection, and God's sovereign will. One word that comes to mind for this story is "honest". I realize historical fiction rides a fine line between fact and fiction, but Byrd handles that line with finesse, inviting the readers into the life of a historical figure everyone should know about.

Here's some info...

Ladies In Waiting - series title

A rich alchemy of fact and fiction, the Ladies in Waiting series chronicles the glittering court lives of three Tudor Queens and the women chosen to be their closest friends and companions. Each book envelopes the reader in sweeping romance, heartwarming and heartbreaking circumstances, and heroines who choose lives worth risking all for.

TO DIE FOR - Book One

Product Description from Amazon -

To Die For, is the story of Meg Wyatt, pledged forever as the best friend to Anne Boleyn since their childhoods on neighboring manors in Kent. When Anne’s star begins to ascend, of course she takes her best friend Meg along for the ride. Life in the court of Henry VIII is thrilling at first, but as Anne’s favor rises and falls, so does Meg’s. And though she’s pledged her loyalty to Anne no matter what the test, Meg just might lose her greatest love—and her own life—because of it.

Meg's childhood flirtation with a boy on a neighboring estate turns to true love early on. When he is called to follow the Lord and be a priest she turns her back on both the man and his God. Slowly, though, both woo her back through the heady times of the English reformation. In the midst of it, Meg finds her place in history, her own calling to the Lord that she must follow, too, with consequences of her own. Each character in the book is tested to figure out what love really means, and what, in this life, is worth dying for.




Though much of Meg’s story is fictionalized, it is drawn from known facts. The Wyatt family and the Boleyn family were neighbors and friends, and perhaps even distant cousins. Meg’s brother, Thomas Wyatt, wooed Anne Boleyn and ultimately came very close to the axe blade for it. Two Wyatt sisters attended Anne at her death, and at her death, she gave one of them her jeweled prayer book—Meg.

What other authors are saying about Byrd's novel....


"Sandra Byrd's first venture into historical fiction is nothing short of brilliant. All the Tudor details are perfectly placed, like gemstones in a royal crown, yet there is far more to this compelling novel... Simply put, To Die For is the best historical novel I've read in many a season, a masterpiece of history and heart." - Liz Curtis Higgs, best-selling author of Here Burns My Candle

Buy this "not for the faint of heart" novel HERE!

1 comment:

Sandra Byrd said...

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing this, Betsy! I appreciate you.