Skip to main content

June 13, 2012

Today's Featured Title and Contest June 13, 2012
 
This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Daily Contest by Thursday, June 14th at 11:59AM ET to win one of five copies of THE QUEEN'S VOW: A Novel of Isabella of Castile by C. W. Gortner. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!
Today's Featured Book and Contest: THE QUEEN'S VOW: A Novel of Isabella of Castile, by C. W. Gortner

No one believed I was destined for greatness.

So begins Isabella’s story, in this evocative, vividly imagined novel about one of history’s most famous and controversial queens --- the warrior who united a fractured country, the champion of the faith whose reign gave rise to the Inquisition, and the visionary who sent Columbus to discover a New World. Acclaimed author C. W. Gortner envisages the turbulent early years of a woman whose mythic rise to power would go on to transform a monarchy, a nation, and the world.

Young Isabella is barely a teenager when she and her brother are taken from their mother’s home to live under the watchful eye of their half-brother, King Enrique, and his sultry, conniving queen. There, Isabella is thrust into danger when she becomes an unwitting pawn in a plot to dethrone Enrique. Suspected of treason and held captive, she treads a perilous path, torn between loyalties, until at age 17 she suddenly finds herself heiress of Castile, the largest kingdom in Spain. Plunged into a deadly conflict to secure her crown, she is determined to wed the one man she loves yet who is forbidden to her --- Fernando, prince of Aragon.

As they unite their two realms under “one crown, one country, one faith,” Isabella and Fernando face an impoverished Spain beset by enemies. With the future of her throne at stake, Isabella resists the zealous demands of the inquisitor Torquemada even as she is seduced by the dreams of an enigmatic navigator named Columbus. But when the Moors of the southern domain of Granada declare war, a violent, treacherous battle against an ancient adversary erupts, one that will test all of Isabella’s resolve, her courage, and her tenacious belief in her destiny.

From the glorious palaces of Segovia to the battlefields of Granada and the intrigue-laden gardens of Seville, THE QUEEN'S VOW sweeps us into the tumultuous forging of a nation and the complex, fascinating heart of the woman who overcame all odds to become Isabella of Castile.


-Click here to read more about the book.
-Connect with C. W. Gortner on Facebook and Twitter.

*If you are experiencing problems with the contest form, click here.

Click here to enter the contest.

This is a special newsletter for our Summer Reading Daily Contest, which will mail Monday through Thursday until July 31st. This newsletter is separate from our weekly Bookreporter.com newsletter, which mails every Friday. You can subscribe to that newsletter here.

Happy reading! Don't forget to visit our other websites from TheBookReportNetwork.com: 20SomethingReads.com, ReadingGroupGuides.com, GraphicNovelReporter.com, FaithfulReader.com, Teenreads.com, Kidsreads.com and AuthorsOnTheWeb.com.

The Book Report Network
250 W. 57th Street - Suite 1228
New York, New York 10107
connect with us twitterfacebook