New Books In Historical Fiction

For more than three centuries after the Mongol conquest of 1240, the rulers of the Golden Horde played a major role in Eurasian politics, both directly and indirectly. One of the states most affected was Russia, where the ruling house of Moscow played the post-conquest political game so successfully that it made itself the center of the resurgent Russian tsardom. In her Legends of the Five Directions series, C. P. Lesley explores the dramatic potential of that distant and often conflict-ridden world. The Swan Princess (Five Directions Press, 2016)–third in the Legends series–returns to the story of Nasan, heroine of book 1, The Golden Lynx. Despite her high standing as a Tatar khan’s daughter and two years of marriage to a husband she has learned to love, Nasan has yet to bear a child. As a result, her status within her in-laws’ household is compromised. Her husband has been sent faraway; her snippy sister-in-law seldom misses a chance to score a point; and her mother-in-law, the mains