And Less Than Kind HEIR TO A THRONE—OR TO A GRAVE

When it became certain that Edward VI was dying, the duke of Northumberland, who had been ruling England in his name, made a plan that would let him hold onto his power. He dared not let Mary come to the throne because she was fiercely Catholic and he had espoused the Protestant cause. And he did not want Elizabeth to rule because he knew her imperious nature would never defer to him. But there was more than one puppet master at work: The evil elf lord Vidal Dhu had no intention of losing the flood of power the misery of Mary's reign would bring the Dark Court, and intervened so that Mary was proclaimed queen.

Urged by her Chancellor and the Imperial ambassador to order Elizabeth's death, Mary chose a different path to insure that Elizabeth would never reign. Mary decided to marry and bear a child to be the Catholic heir. Vidal Dhu, replete with power from the pain and terror of Mary's burning of heretics, agreed with Mary. Vidal Dhu had very special plans for Mary's child. And since Oberon and Titania had disappeared, there now was no one except the double pair of twins to stand between the mortals of England and the rule of Evil.

Mercedes Lackey is the New York Times best-selling author of the Bardic Voices series and the SERRAted Edge series (both Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series (DAW), and many more. She was one of the first writers to have an online newsgroup devoted to her writing. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and The Shadow of the Lion (with Eric Flint and Dave Freer). She lives in Oklahoma.

Roberta Gellis is author of over 25 novels in different fields. Her many awards include: The Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur. From Romantic Times she has received both the Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period and also the Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy, and the Romance Writers of America have presented her with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Her previous fantasy titles for Baen are Bull God and Thrice Bound.

Praise for Mercedes Lackey:

"She'll keep you up long past your bedtime."— Stephen King

"A writer whose work I've loved all along." — Marion Zimmer Bradley

"[Lackey is] an undoubted mistress of the well-told tale." — Booklist

"Lackey is one of the best storytellers in the field." — Locus

"(Lackey's fantasy] leaves us simultaneously satisfied and longing for more." — Realms of Fantasy

"[Lackey] packs as much action, suspense and twisting of conventions into one novel as many writers invest in whole trilogies." — Amazing Stones

Praise for Roberta Gellis:

"A superb storyteller of extraordinary talent."

— John fakes

"[Roberta Gellis is] a master of the medieval historical."— Publishers Weekly

"One of the romance genre's most formidable talents. . . ."— Romantic Times

"Ms. Gellis has become an extraordinary mythteller." — The Paperback Forum

"Let's hope the world of fantasy can steal Gellis from romance novels more often."

— Science Fiction Chronicle

"Roberta Gellis has already established herself as a great author in the |romantic fantasy genre. . . ."

— Affaire de Coeur

Leah, a terrified fifteen-year-old, is forced into a political match with a rough-hewn, seemingly brutal nobleman Lord Radnor, the clubfooted son of the harsh Duke of Gaunt. But Leah comes to see that the brutality is a necessary mask, and that the man beneath is more than capable of love. If she can find a way to win through the shadows to his deeply-hidden heart, together they might forge a new destiny for their families and themselves.

Elvish Conspiracies Afoot! Heroine, Arise!

Trouble, trouble, the plots do bubble! King Henry VIII has finally joined his unmerry wives in the afterlife, and the Unseleighe Sidhe, the Dark Elves, are bent on subverting the English throne and bringing back the sorrow, horror and despair of the Middle Ages. After all, that's what made the bad old days so much fun — for them!

Enlightenment's hope A mere fourteen-year-old girl. A bright and adaptable fourteen-year-old to be sure, but still—what chance has such a young thing against the Unseleighe Sidhe's tangled web of treachery and depravity

A pretty good one. You see, the girl's name is Elizabeth, and that fiery red hair is no lie. Whether immortal lord or malicious mortal, young Elizabeth Tudor's enemies cross her at their peril!

Two hugely-popular master storytellers of historical fantasy brew up an elvish conspiracy for the ages in this exciting sequel to This Sceptr'd Isle and Ill Met By Moonlight.

"[Mercedes] Lackey. . . produces elegant, compelling fantasy."
—Publishers Weekly on best-selling High Priestess of Fantasy, Mercedes Lackey.

"[K]nowledgeable readers. . .will enjoy the interplay between elven intervention and historical fact."
—Publishers Weekly on Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis's This Sceptr'd Isle.

A Medieval Pageant of Honor, Danger and Desire from the Queen of High Romance!

“Exciting and absorbing.”—Book-of-the-Month Club News

“…outstanding historical novels.”—Booklist

Genre-defining medieval romances told in beautifully-realized settings by the legendary master storyteller of the high romance form, Roberta Gellis. Gellis is famed for her ability to create moving and dramatic stories with characters who are spot-on historical and a part and parcel of the stunning milieus they inhabit. She’s an acknowledged master of high romance, and the Queen of Medieval Historicals!

These are the 11th century novels where it all began, the place where Roberta Gellis first brought the pageant of the past alive with her unique power to capture the details perfectly while telling a fascinating, harrowing, and ultimately fulfilling tale. Many have tried; few have succeeded so well as this Mistress of Historical Drama. The sumptuously recreated settings. The conflagration of danger and burning desire.

Here are the four novels of Gellis’s first 11th century blossoming brought together for the first time in a stunning bouquet of story-telling majesty, fully edited and with a new introduction by the author. Included here are Bond of Blood, Knight’s Honor, The Sword and the Swan and The Dragon and the Rose. For a limited time, the package will be available for a swoon-inducing $18. Then, beginning in April 2011, the bundle will separate and each book will be available for a still amazing $5.

Journey back in time and into the lives of the men and women who lived, loved and forged a history that will never be forgotten!

The bundled volume includes:

Bond of Blood

Leah, a terrified fifteen-year-old, is forced into a political match with a rough-hewn, seemingly brutal nobleman Lord Radnor, the clubfooted son of the harsh Duke of Gaunt. But Leah comes to see that the brutality is a necessary mask, and that the man beneath is more than capable of love. If she can find a way to win through the shadows to his deeply-hidden heart, together they might forge a new destiny for their families and themselves.

Knight’s Honor

Roger, Earl of Hereford, has had enough of wars. He has fought bravely for King Henry II in a brutal civil conflict, only to see his lord attempt a union with bitter enemies. Now Roger must turn to the very real task of securing his long-neglected lands and founding a family line with strong and loyal wife Elizabeth, who understands that she may not be married to the most considerate of men, but that she’s made a powerful match, all the same. Now Roger and Elizabeth must fight to master a dangerous world where mortal danger and intrigue constantly lurk and civilization has only the most tenuous of footholds.

The Sword and the Swan

The prequel to Gellis’s famed Roselynde chronicles and set during the tumult of King Stephen’s last days in England. Ranulf is an honorable nobleman who loves his king, yet he knows that king is no longer fit to rule. Ranulf cultivates a façade of brutality in order to survive the harsh and power-mad world in which he must move, but when he finds himself with Catharine, a widow who has lost everything, he learns that she is a woman who is determined to build a new life and never lose her family again to the fires of conflict. She is, in fact, a woman after his own heart, if only he can see it.

Dragon and Rose

The saga of the first Tudor king, Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York. It is a time of strife and consolidation. England is far from settled, and the land is in uproar. Henry must battle the upstart Richard and somehow hold together a kingdom. Meanwhile on the home front, Elizabeth must carve a place for herself and the potential heirs she will bear in a castle full of intrigue. Together they forge a legendary line of kings and queens of England who will change the course of history!

Bond of Blood

by Roberta Gellis

Knight's Honor

by Roberta Gellis

The Sword and the Swan

by Roberta Gellis and Lyle Kenyon Engel

The Dragon and the Rose

by Roberta Gellis and Lyle Kenyon Engel

GOD (AND ELFLAND) SAVE THE QUEEN

Peace reigns in Elfland. Incredibly, King Oberon and his exquisite but willful queen, Titania, are at peace with one another. But still the FarSeers of the Selieghe Court are uneasy. They fear trouble is coming to the mortal world of England, which is close to Elfhame Avalon. King Henry VIII is ageing but the futures shown when the FarSeers lift the great crystal lens are unchanged. The rule of the son Great Harry finally succeeded in begetting will bring gray lives and a misery of dull oppression to England. Worse will come if his eldest daughter comes to the throne--a queen warped by fanaticism who might easily summon the Inquisition to rule by torture and fire, burning out heresy ... and every bright aspect of life. The prize at the end of the rainbow is the possibility of a red-haired queen with lion-gold eyes, brilliant with interest and curiosity, welcoming the blossoming of art, music, and literature. But now the last image is flickering, edged in a dark menace.

Years before, Prince Vidal had tried to seize the child Elizabeth and replace her with a simulacrum who would soon die. Vidal had been wounded almost to death in the attempt—-but so also had Denoriel, Elizabeth's principal protector. Denoriel is now healing--but so, unbeknownst to those of the Bright Court, is Vidal. And when Vidal wakes to himself, his determination to hurl England into a new dark age is fiercer than ever, fueled by his fury over his defeat and injury. Also, his Dark Court feeds on human suffering and dark emotions. To ensure his own power, he must at all costs prevent Elizabeth from coming to the throne. To gain this goal, Vidal has set in motion a plan of which Denoriel and his comrades are dangerously unaware. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mercedes Lackey is the author of the Bardic Voices series and the SERRAted Edge series (both Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series (DAW), and many more. Of her writing, Stephen King has stated, "She'll keep you up long past your bedtime," and Locus raved, "Lackey is one of the best storytellers in the field." She has her own fan club with over 1,000 members, and was one of the first writers to have an online newsgroup devoted to her writing. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and The Shadow of the Lion (with Eric Flint and Dave Freer). She lives in Oklahoma.

Roberta Gellis is author of over 25 novels in different fields. New York Times best-selling author John Jakes has called her "a superb storyteller of extraordinary talent," Publishers Weekly has termed her "a master of the medieval historical," and Romantic Times has praised her as "a master spinner of tales." Her many awards include: The Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur. From Romantic Times she has received both the Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period and also the Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy. And the Romance Writers of America have presented her with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Her previous fantasy titles for Baen are Bull God and Thrice Bound.

Roger, Earl of Hereford, has had enough of wars. He has fought bravely for King Henry II in a brutal civil conflict, only to see his lord attempt a union with bitter enemies. Now Roger must turn to the very real task of securing his long-neglected lands and founding a family line with strong and loyal wife Elizabeth, who understands that she may not be married to the most considerate of men, but that she’s made a powerful match, all the same. Now Roger and Elizabeth must fight to master a dangerous world where mortal danger and intrigue constantly lurk and civilization has only the most tenuous of footholds.

The prequel to Gellis’s famed Roselynde chronicles and set during the tumult of King Stephen’s last days in England. Ranulf is an honorable nobleman who loves his king, yet he knows that king is no longer fit to rule. Ranulf cultivates a façade of brutality in order to survive the harsh and power-mad world in which he must move, but when he finds himself with Catharine, a widow who has lost everything, he learns that she is a woman who is determined to build a new life and never lose her family again to the fires of conflict. She is, in fact, a woman after his own heart, if only he can see it.

DENORIEL:
WARRIOR OF KORONOS;
RIDER IN THE WILD HUNT
. . . NURSEMAID

Denoriel Siencyn Macreth Silverhair was a warrior in Koronos' band, a fierce rider in the Wild Hunt, but when he was summoned he came obediently to the valley of the FarSeers.

A glow of power lifted about the crystal lens. "Here is the nexus of our future," said the FarSeer in the dress of ancient Greece, and a mist seemed to pass over the surface of the lens. A moment later, the surface cleared, and within it, Denoriel saw the image of a human infant, red-haired and scowling, swaddled in fine, embroidered linen and lace . . . and glowing with power. The babe was being held by a figure that Denoriel recognized—the mortal king of England, Henry, eighth of that name.

The lens misted again, and scene after scene played out briefly before him—briefly, but enough to show him a future very bright for the mortals of England, a flowering of art, music, and letters, of great deeds, of exploration and bravery. Oh, there were problems——twice, if Denoriel read the signs aright Spain sent a great fleet against England, only to be repulsed at minimal cost. But the troubles were weathered, the difficulties overcome, and the result was nearly an age of gold.

"And this," said the lady of the ancient ways, "Is what will come to pass if that child does not reign."

Fires . . .

Black-robed priests, grim-faced and implacable, condemned scores, hundreds, to the Question, torturing their bodies until they would confess to anything, then burning what was left in front of silent onlookers. Others, whose intellects burned as brightly as the flames, did not need to be tortured; they confessed their sins of difference defiantly . . . and were also burned. In place of a flowering of art and science, came a blight. Darkness fell over the land, pressed there by the heavy, iron hand of Spain and the Inquisition.

"You are the key to all of this." The FarSeer's emerald eyes held his. "The red-haired child of Great Harry of England must live, and thrive, and grow up to rule. You must go to it in the mortal world, and become its protector."

"But I am a warrior, not a nursemaid—" he said, feebly.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mercedes Lackey is the author of the Bardic Voices series and the SERRAted Edge series (both Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series (DAW), and many more. Of her writing, Stephen King has stated, "She'll keep you up long past your bedtime," and Locus raved, "Lackey is one of the best storytellers in the field." She has her own fan club with over 1,000 members, and was one of the first writers to have an online newsgroup devoted to her writing. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and The Shadow of the Lion (with Eric Flint and Dave Freer). She lives in Oklahoma.

Roberta Gellis is author of over 25 novels in different fields. New York Times best-selling author John Jakes has called her "a superb storyteller of extraordinary talent," Publishers Weekly has termed her "a master of the medieval historical," and Romantic Times has praised her as "a master spinner of tales." Her many awards include: The Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur. From Romantic Times she has received both the Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period and also the Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy. And the Romance Writers of America have presented her with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Her previous fantasy titles for Baen are Bull God and Thrice Bound.