The Lady of Secrets

October 8, 2012
With the next installment in her Dark Queen series, Carroll continues in the world of Twilight of a Queen. Margaret Wolfe, the daughter of “mad witch” Cassandra Lascelles, has a dark past with her mother’s Silver Rose coven. It is 1605 and Meg has fought hard to forget her past and her mother, and become a daughter of the earth. But when Sir Patrick Graham comes to Brittany asking for Meg’s help in curing King James of a curse that bears her drowned mother’s particularly poisonous signature, Meg has no choice but to return with him to England, despite oblique warnings from Sir Patrick’s companion, Armagil Blackwood. In England, plots abound, and Meg struggles to learn who she can trust. Though the book can stand alone from the series, readers familiar with previous books will have an easier time understanding some references. Carroll deftly crafts her tale, lulling readers into false truths before yanking the carpet out from under them. Though the villains this time out lack that edge of Carroll’s previous evildoer, Catherine de Medici, this is enough fun to convert new readers into fans. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, the Jane Rotrosen Literary Agency.

October 1, 2012
A practitioner of white magic becomes embroiled, against her will, in the Guy Fawkes conspiracy. In this latest of Carroll's popular series featuring witches, good and evil, of late-Renaissance Europe, the protagonist is Meg Wolfe, the recently anointed Lady of Faire Isle. Although her mother, the late Cassandra, leader of the sinister Silver Rose coven, had tried to groom Meg as her successor sorceress, Meg opted for the Lady's mostly benign duties, leading an isolated group of "cunning women," healing with herbs, and undoing spells cast by bad witches. When she's summoned to Brittany to investigate a demonic possession, she is enlisted by an English knight, Sir Patrick Graham, to lift a curse plaguing King James. Once in London, escorted by Patrick and his friend, the dissolute but charming physician Armagil Blackwood, Meg regrets leaving the serenity of Faire Isle. Dreams and other clues reveal to her that Sir Patrick may actually be Robert Brody, whose twin sister was burned at the stake for witchcraft years before, along with an old crone, Tamsin, who had believed the condemned duo would be pardoned by James. When James demurred, Tamsin cursed him and the Stuart line from the pyre. Could Patrick be using Meg to win the king's confidence while plotting treasonous vengeance? Outwardly loutish but secretly sexy Armagil tries to warn her, but when he touches a poisoned Silver Rose found in the garden of her lodgings, she is distracted by the need to save his life then consummate their mutual attraction. When Patrick catches them together, he's incensed, but his accusations hint at fears Meg already harbors. What if Cassandra isn't dead after all? What if her coven has returned, bent on declaring Meg their all-powerful queen, Megaera? What if Guido (Guy) Fawkes' gunpowder goes stale before he can blow up Parliament? Skillful story weaving insures that readers will only know the answers to the book's questions at the end.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.