Droemer Knaur*

4
HISTORICAL FICTION
Marie Cristen
The Hour of the Venetian
512 pages, 3-426-66180-2
August 2007
A thoroughly researched historical
novel with a resourceful heroine
Brügge, Belgium, the late 14th century:
The young noblewoman Aimée Andrieux
meets the charming Conrad Cornelis, the
heir to one of Brügge’s most important
businesses. Flanders is the land where
merchants are just as respected as nobility,
and thus Aimée’s marriage to
Conrad is not seen as being below her
station. But the House of Cornelis is not
in the best of shape. To try and save what
he can, Conrad tries to journey to
London, but he meets his death at sea.
All appears lost for Aimée: the firm’s
creditors want their money back, and
Aimée’s mother-in-law can’t stand her.
But Aimée gets help from an unexpected
source: as her grandmother in faraway
Burgundy hears of her beloved granddaughter’s
marriage to a Cornelis, she’s
shocked and sends a courier with a coffer
to Flanders. The content is something
she had long kept secret: the will of the
lecherous Piet Cornelis, who generations
ago, in his first marriage, was wed to an
Andrieux. As fate would have it, Aimée is
now the rightful heir to the House of
Cornelis!
Marie Cristen’s previous novel The Fire
of the Beguines has certain tie-ins with
this new book, though both novels stand
on their own.
Ursula Niehaus
The Silkwoman
642 pages. 3-426-66256-6
May 2007
A new star author, a lovable character,
an exciting plot, a fascinating setting
Fygen, who has no mother, grows up with
her father. But then her father dies and
the girl is in the custody of her unscrupulous
uncle, who tries to molest her as she
gets older.
Only a well-meaning housekeeper can
stop this, and she sends Fygen to
Cologne to learn the art of making silk
from Mettel, her uncle’s greedy cousin.
It’s near the end of the Middle Ages, and
Cologne is in full bloom. Fygen has to
learn to survive here, and she suffers
under her teacher, who makes her life
difficult. She meets the successful silk
merchant Peter Lützenkirchen, who falls
in love with her and marries her when her
apprenticeship is over. His wedding present
to her is her very own silk workshop.
But soon Peter must head for London on
a risky journey.
But he’s run into huge problems in London,
and has even been thrown into a
dungeon. Fygen sets out to rescue him …
Ursula Niehaus, owner of her own business,
has dreamed of becoming an author
since she was young. She lives with
her husband in the small town of
Ingelheim am Rhein.
Susanne Stein
The Emperor’s Mistress
480 pages, 3-426-63532-2
September 2007
The heroine is Bianca Lancia, a woman of
noble heritage from Piemont in the first
half of the 13th century. Her family has
fallen into poverty, so her brother arranges
a marriage to an influential count.
Following a banquet which Bianca stays
away from, the drunken count storms
into Bianca’s room and attacks her.
Bianca kills him with some scissors in
self-defense.
She has to flee and makes her way to
Brindisi where her girlfriend lives in a
cloister. When it becomes clear that she
can’t hide there, Bianca makes the bold
decision to join the Crusaders and to
journey with them to the Holy Land. She
is fascinated by Emperor Friedrich II of
Hohenstaufen.
Plague breaks out and Friedrich falls ill,
meanwhile Bianca sneaks onto a ship
disguised as a man. Once in Jerusalem
she is taken prisoner and Sultan Al-Kalim
sends her to his harem. Healthy again,
Friedrich journeys to Jerusalem, befriends
the sultan, and is given Bianca as
a gift. Soon Friedrich and Bianca are deeply
in love …
Susanne Stein has been working as
journalist for women magazines and as
free author for more than twenty years.
She studied history – the 13th century is
in the centre of her interest. This is her
first novel.