Synopses & Reviews
January 1067. Charismatic bishop Odo of Bayeux commissions a wall hanging, on a scale never seen before, to celebrate the conquest of Britain by his brother, William, Duke of Normandy. What he cannot anticipate is how utterly this will change his life-even more than the invasion itself.
His life becomes entangled with the women who embroider his hanging, especially Gytha-handmaiden to the fallen Saxon queen and his sworn enemy. But against their intentions, they fall helplessly in love. Friends become enemies, enemies become lovers; nothing in life or in the hanging is what it seems.
Synopsis
His lust for power gave him everything. But it might cost him the love of his life.
The Bishop hired her for a simple job: embroider a tapestry. It is an enormous work, a cloth trophy of the conquest of England. But her skill with a needle and thread is legendary. It would be uncomplicated.
She plans to kill him as soon as she gets the chance. He and his brother, William the Conqueror, murdered her King and destroyed her world. Revenge, pure and clean. It would be simple.
But neither planned to fall desperately in love. As the two become hopelessly entangled, friends become enemies, enemies become lovers, and nothing in life--or the tapestry--is what it seems. An unlikely love story born of passion and intensity, crafted by critically acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Bower, The Needle in the Blood is a story of love, war, and the tangled truth of England's birth.
Praise for Sarah Bower's
Sins of the House of BorgiaSizzling.--USA Today
The sheer grandeur of the papal and Ferrara courts and the spectacle of the Borgia and Ferrara siblings' rivalries and revenges form a glittering take on one of the most notorious families of the Italian Renaissance.--Publisher's Weekly
Bower brilliantly merges history with politics and convincing characters to draw readers into a lush and colorful tapestry of Renaissance life...This powerful piece of fiction ranks with some of the finest of the genre.--RT Book Reviews