The publisher has generously given me three copies of this book to giveaway. To enter, please leave a comment with a valid email address and tell me what historical figure you'd like to read a novelization about. For two extra entries, blog about this contest with a link back to this post (be sure to come leave me a comment telling me blogged about it!). Open internationally. I'll draw three winners on January 31st. Can't wait? Buy the book...more

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One of the highlights of 2008 for me was reading an advance copy of Robin Maxwell's SIGNORA DA VINCI, set in 15th century Italy. Robin's books have thrilled me for years; whether she's exploring the life of Anne Boleyn, the youth of Elizabeth I or the Irish tragedy of Elizabeth's later reign, her work is distinguished by painstaking scholarship... more

As I wrote in the blurb for your book, this is one of the best historical novels I read in 2008!... more

Ms. Maxwell has again shown her adeptness with the historical fiction genre. She takes a woman whom history has forgotten and not only gives her a voice, but gives her life. Caterina could be anyone we know who is struggling against what society deems she must do in order to follow what her heart and her head tell her she needs to do...more

Summary: Abandoned by her wealthy lover, apothecary's daughter Caterina da Vinci is forced to give her newborn son, Leonardo, to his father's family. But as his wet nurse, she has the opportunity to stay in his life and gives him his love of learning, experimenting and genius. When he's sent to Florence , she dons men's clothes and follows, setting up an apothecary's shop under the name "Cato." Leonardo recognizes her and makes her an integral part of his life, even bringing her into the secret society of scholars and artists.

Along with her son and Lorenzo de Medici, Caterina takes part in a plot to destroy the "mad monk" Savanarola, who aided in the French invasion of Florence . By designing the "Lirey Shroud," she helps save the city and creates a lasting relationship with her son. (NAL, Jan., 435 pp., $15.00) MILD

Mademoiselle Boleyn , novelist Robin Maxwell delves into the life of Caterina-the adventurer, alchemist, and mother of Leonardo da Vinci..more

Review by Victoria Gevoian

Robin Maxwell’s tenth novel purports to unveil the untold origins of our world’s first technologically advanced society. In Atlantos, the gods of Plato’s fabled continent are actually extraterrestrials from “Planet X” who mate with the aboriginal people of Erthe, genetically altering human evolution for their own purposes, and create an army of drone slaves to mine precious metals on Mars.

The rival brothers Poseidon and Athens Ra from the dying planet Terres are not so much gods as they are men with advanced technologies. As they deal with violence, love, lust and greed, they learn from the aboriginal primitives of Erthe what it means to be human.

According to the author, well-known for her nine deeply researched historical novels of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Atlantos and its upcoming sequel, Children Of Ra, are not simply fantasies based on myth. Maxwell describes them as historical novels as well, or more precisely, “pre-historical novels” set 12,000 years in the past. More than just compelling stories, they also bring a warning about the future fate of our planet.

Maxwell’s characters and storylines are anchored not only in the writings of Plato, but also the cutting-edge research of today’s best and brightest scientists, explorers and scholars in the fields of pre-history, archeology, paleoanthropology, astronomy, physics, genetics, catastrophic geology and ufology. She’s taken all her favorite “mysteries of the universe”—civilizations lost to the Great Flood; unexplained missing links in human evolution; evidence of ancient extraterrestrial visitation on Earth and Mars—and set them against the havoc technology is currently wreaking on the natural world, weaving the whole into a sprawling, character-driven epic family saga.

I couldn’t put it down. (Pipes Canyon Press)

Book Club Cookbook

Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's only child, Elizabeth I, reads the truth about her mother's turbulent ascendancy and downfall in Anne's long-hidden diary...more

Books On The Brain

The world of book readership has changed dramatically since I started back in 1997 with  Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn .  That was the period of ascendancy of the chains, Borders and Barnes and Noble, and for  Diary  I went on an old-fashioned national author tour, speaking at more than 100 venues from coast-to-coast...more