Book News April 2021

Tea with Hitler: The Secret History of the Royal Family and the Third Reich 

Hardcover – 15 April 2021 (UK) & Unknown (US)

Queen Victoria dreamt that her Coburg dynasty would unite Europe in an extended family network via a series of dynastic marriages. Her eldest daughter, Vicky, married the future German Emperor in 1855, and by the time Victoria died in 1901, six of her eight children had married German royals, and her 42 grandchildren resided in palaces and castles across the continent. Victoria hoped this soft power would safeguard peace and foster constitutional government based on the British model. Never again would Europe be torn apart by power-mad dictators such as Napoleon Bonaparte. However, Victoria’s high-handedness, the arrogance and stupidity of her grandchildren, including the peculiarities of Kaiser Wilhelm, and the aggressive German nationalism of the 20th Century put paid to her vision of a united Europe. In Tea with Hitler, author Dean Palmer pulls together for the first time all the individual stories to provide the complete picture of the fractured Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family during wartime.

Cleopatra: The Queen Who Challenged Rome and Conquered Eternity 

Hardcover – 23 March 2021 (US) & 29 April 2021 (UK)

Cleopatra focuses on a twenty-year period that marked a sweeping change in Roman history, beginning with the assassination of Julius Caesar that led to the end of the Republic, and ending with the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra and the birth of the Augustan Empire. Angela brings the people, stories, customs, and traditions of this fascinating period alive as he transports us to the chaotic streets of the capital of the ancient world, the exotic port of Alexandria in Egypt, and to the bloody battlefields where an empire was won and lost.

Meticulously researched and rich with vivid detail, this sweeping history, reminiscent of the works of Simon Schama, Mary Beard’s SPQR, and Tom Holland’s Rubicon, recreates this remarkable era and the woman at its turbulent center.

Town & Country: The Queen: A Life in Pictures 

Hardcover – 6 April 2021 (US) & 12 April 2021 (UK)

Since she succeeded to the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II has become respected, celebrated, and beloved around the world. This stunning collection of powerful images illustrates her storied reign in all its glory.

More than 300 extraordinary photographs, along with insightful commentary by the royal journalist Victoria Murphy, showcase the significant, historic, and intimate moments throughout the Queen’s life, first as a young princess and then as the longest-reigning British monarch.

Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 1588-1603

Kindle Edition – 13 April 2021 (US & UK)

MacCaffrey completes his analysis by investigating how Elizabeth and her ministers governed in the years between the Armada of 1588 and her death in 1603. In light of the Queen’s desire to uphold her popularity through the maintenance of peace and prosperity, the author explains why she pursued war with Spain by only half-measures and how the brutal conquest of Ulster and the destruction of Tyrone came to be seen as prerequisites for the incorporation of Northern Ireland.

Kaiulani of Hawaii: And The Fall Of Her Kingdom 

Paperback – 1 April 2021 (US & UK)

In the nineteenth century Hawaii achieved a widely recognized status as an independent state but it was unable to retain its independence. The loss of Hawaii’s independence followed changes in US foreign policy, and a local coup d’état that was supported by the US Navy and Marines, which set Hawaii on a course towards inclusion in a new American Pacific Empire. But the last Crown Princess of the Kingdom, seventeen year old Princess Victoria Kaiulani, who was a student in England when the crisis broke struggled against the annexation of her country. She travelled to America to try and influence American public opinion, and she met with the President of the United States to bear witness to the tragedy that had befallen Hawaii. Her poignant pleas for her country touched the conscience of many, and her actions helped to foil Hawaii’s immediate annexation, giving her country a brief reprieve from the loss of its national sovereignty. Later, after Hawaii was absorbed by the United States, she strove to ensure that indigenous Hawaiians would be able secure their political rights as US citizens, before she suffered an early death at the age of twenty-three.

The York Princesses: The Daughters of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville 

Paperback – 1 May 2021 (US) & 30 April 2021 (UK)

As a collective, the lives of the Princesses of York span across seven decades and the rule of five different Kings. The daughters of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, they were born into an England that had been ruled over by the great Plantagenet Kings for almost three hundred years. Their young years were blighted by tragedy: the death of their beloved father, followed by the disappearance and possible murder of their two brothers, Edward and Richard of York, forever now known to history as the infamous Princes in the Tower. With their own futures uncertain during the reign of their uncle, Richard III, and their mother held under house arrest, the Princesses had to navigate their way through the tumultuous years of the 1480s before having to adjust to a new King and a new dynasty in the shape of Henry VII, who would bring about the age of the Tudors. Through her marriage to Henry, Elizabeth of York rebuilt her life, establishing herself as a popular, if not hugely influential Queen. But she did not forget her younger siblings, and even before her own mother’s death, she acted as a surrogate mother to the younger York princesses, supporting them both financially and emotionally. The stories of the York Princesses are entwined into the fabric of the history of England, as they grew up, survived and even thrived in the new Tudor age. Their lives are played out against a backdrop of coronations and jousts, births and deaths, marriages and divorces and loyalties and broken allegiances. From the usurpation of Richard III, to the Battle of Bosworth, the brilliance of the court of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, to the rise of Anne Boleyn, the York Princesses were there to witness events unfold. They were the daughters, sisters and aunts of Kings, and this is their story. The York Princesses is a natural follow-up to Sarah J. Hodder’s first book, The Queen’s Sisters, which told the stories of the lives of the sisters of Elizabeth Woodville.

Chronos Crime Chronicles – Jane Parker: The Downfall Of Two Tudor Queens? 

Paperback – 1 May 2021 (US) & 30 April 2021 (UK)

Jane Parker, later Viscountess Rochford, was the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn and was executed alongside Katherine Howard, yet she has remained in the shadows throughout the years, surrounded by more myths than facts. She is often portrayed as a malicious woman who was jealous of her husband’s relationship with his sister, but the evidence does not support that. So why is she portrayed as such? It may be the ambiguous nature of her dealings with Henry VIII’s fifth queen, Katherine Howard, that have influenced our view of her, but her real story deserves to be told in full. Jane Parker: The Downfall of Two Tudor Queens? is the next instalment in an exciting new historical true crime series from Chronos Books.

Princess Olga of Yugoslavia: Her Life and Times 

Hardcover – 1 April 2021 (UK & US)

Often called the ‘most royal Princess in Europe’, Olga’s life is imbued with drama from the outset: Taken ‘hostage’ by her Romanov grandmother, she is further traumatised by the assassination of her grandfather, the King of Greece, followed by a humiliating Swiss exile and being cast aside by a future Danish king.