A colorful biography of five royal sisters in medieval England. In 1254 the teenage heir to the English throne took a Spanish bride, the sister of the king of Castile, in Burgos. Their marriage of thirty-six years proved to be one of the great royal romances of the Middle Ages. Edward I of England and Leonor of Castile had at least fourteen children together, though only six survived into adulthood, five of them daughters. Daughters of Edward I traces the lives of these five capable, independent women, including Joan of Acre, born in the Holy Land, who defied her father by marrying a second husband of her own choice, and Mary, who did not let her forced veiling as a nun stand in the way of the life she really wanted to live. These women’s stories span the decades from the 1260s to the 1330s, through the long reign of their father, the turbulent reign of their brother Edward II, and into the reign of their nephew, the child-king Edward III.

Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized – and largely mythical – notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of the great English king, Edward I. The lives of these sisters – Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth – ran the full gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages. Living as they did in a courtly culture founded on romantic longing and brilliant pageantry, they knew that a princess was to be chaste yet a mother to many children, preferably sons, meek yet able to influence a recalcitrant husband or even command a host of men-at-arms. Edward’s daughters were of course expected to cement alliances and secure lands and territory by making great dynastic marriages, or endow religious houses with royal favour. But they also skilfully managed enormous households, navigated choppy diplomatic waters and promoted their family’s cause throughout Europe – and had the courage to defy their royal father. They might never wear the crown in their own right, but they were utterly confident of their crucial role in the spectacle of medieval kingship. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, Daughters of Chivalry offers a rich portrait of these spirited Plantagenet women. With their libraries of beautifully illustrated psalters and tales of romance, their rich silks and gleaming jewels, we follow these formidable women throughout their lives and see them – at long last – shine from out of the shadows, revealing what it was to be a princess in the Age of Chivalry.

“A great book to introduce you to three fascinating sisters whose marriages during the reign of the infamous Edward II transformed England.” —Adventures of a Tudor Nerd The de Clare sisters Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth were born in the 1290s as the eldest granddaughters of King Edward I of England and his Spanish queen Eleanor of Castile, and were the daughters of the greatest nobleman in England, Gilbert “the Red” de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. They grew to adulthood during the turbulent reign of their uncle Edward II, and all three of them were married to men involved in intense, probably romantic or sexual, relationships with their uncle. When their elder brother Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was killed during their uncle’s catastrophic defeat at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, the three sisters inherited and shared his vast wealth and lands in three countries, but their inheritance proved a poisoned chalice. Eleanor and Elizabeth, and Margaret’s daughter and heir, were all abducted and forcibly married by men desperate for a share of their riches, and all three sisters were imprisoned at some point either by their uncle Edward II or his queen Isabella of France during the tumultuous decade of the 1320s. Elizabeth was widowed for the third time at twenty-six, lived as a widow for just under forty years, and founded Clare College at the University of Cambridge. “Another enjoyable read on women in history that don’t always get the limelight that they deserve. Kathryn Warner has done it once again by providing a well-written, well-researched, informative and engaging read.” —Where There’s Ink There’s Paper

In 1254 the teenage heir to the English throne married a Spanish bride, the sister of the king of Castile, in Burgos, and their marriage of thirty-six years proved to be one of the great royal romances of the Middle Ages. Edward I of England and Leonor of Castile had at least fourteen children together, though only six survived into adulthood, five of them daughters. Daughters of Edward I traces the lives of these five capable, independent women, including Joan of Acre, born in the Holy Land, who defied her father by marrying a second husband of her own choice, and Mary, who did not let her forced veiling as a nun stand in the way of the life she really wanted to live. The women's stories span the decades from the 1260s to the 1330s, through the long reign of their father, the turbulent reign of their brother Edward II, and into the reign of their nephew, the child-king Edward III.

When fifteen-year-old Victoria grudgingly accompanies her mother to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she has no idea her life is about to change forever. While there, she falls under the spell of the famous John Singer Sargent portrait The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. Drawn into the portrait’s shadowy depths, Victoria finds herself transported back in time to the world of the four troubled Boit sisters. By the time she returns to her own world, Victoria understands that the sisters are in serious trouble and need her help. She dedicates herself to solving the mystery of their peculiar loneliness and isolation—only to discover that at the same time she is having an impact on the Boit sisters’ future, they are having an equally dramatic effect on her own. Spanning a brief period in the lives of John Singer Sargent and the Boit family, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a coming-of-age tale that explores both the murky world of Paris in 1882 and the upheaval going on in Victoria’s own time, the early sixties, all the while pondering possible answers to the questions raised by Sargent’s most enigmatic work of art.

A paperback edition of the book described by the New York Times Book Review as 'thoroughly absorbing'. Henry James minced no words in crediting John Singer Sargent with a 'knock-down insolence of talent.' Among the painter's many renowned works, few deserve the phrase as much as The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, which stands alongside Madame X and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw as one of Sargent's greatest images. The painting, depicting four young sisters in the family apartment (first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1883, it predated by just one year the scandal of Madame X), both explores and defies convention, crossing the boundaries between portrait and genre scene, formal composition and casual snapshot. At its unveiling, one prominent critic rushed to praise Sargent's stunning originality, while another dismissed the canvas as 'four corners and a void.' Using numerous unpublished archival documents, Erica E. Hirshler explores this iconic canvas from a variety of angles, discussing its innovative significance as a work of art, the people involved in its making and what became of them, its importance to Sargent's career, its place in the tradition of artistic patronage, and its changing meanings and lasting popularity. Sargent's Daughters is an evocative, multifaceted book that will transform the way you look at Sargent's work, simultaneously illuminating a much beloved painting and reaffirming its mystery

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of the New York Times bestseller Homecoming—“An ambitious, compelling historical mystery with a fabulous cast of characters…Kate Morton at her very best.” —Kristin Hannah “An elaborate tapestry…Morton doesn’t disappoint.” —The Washington Post "Classic English country-house Goth at its finest." —New York Post In the depths of a 19th-century winter, a little girl is abandoned on the streets of Victorian London. She grows up to become in turn a thief, an artist’s muse, and a lover. In the summer of 1862, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she travels with a group of artists to a beautiful house on a bend of the Upper Thames. Tensions simmer and one hot afternoon a gunshot rings out. A woman is killed, another disappears, and the truth of what happened slips through the cracks of time. It is not until over a century later, when another young woman is drawn to Birchwood Manor, that its secrets are finally revealed. Told by multiple voices across time, this is an intricately layered, richly atmospheric novel about art and passion, forgiveness and loss, that shows us that sometimes the way forward is through the past.