Лучшие книги Шаран Ньюман

Тамплиеры - кто они? Защитники христианства или коварные еретики? Где лежат - и лежат ли? - спрятанные ими сокровища? Куда делся Святой Грааль? Кто открыл Америку - Колумб или тамплиеры? А может быть. Орден храмовников не исчез и существует по сей день? Ответы на эти и многие другие вопросы - в книге Шаран Ньюман. Это не просто "подлинная история" - это…

Роман Дэна Брауна "Код да Винчи" породил много книг-спутников.
Спутники бывают разные.
Одни обслуживают свою "планету", другие - диагностируют ее.
Подлинная история "Кода да Винчи" - книга-диагноз.
В ней НЕ рассказывается, о чем Дэн Браун написал в своем романе.
В ней рассказывается о том, о чем Дэн Браун НЕ НАПИСАЛ. Или не сумел написать. Или не захотел.
В книге Шаран Ньюман - РЕАЛЬНЫЕ факты, ПОДЛИННЫЕ события, НАСТОЯЩИЕ исторические персонажи, ТОЧНЫЕ места действия, ПРАВДИВЫЕ источники, на которых строится роман Дэна Брауна.

Юная Катрин Левандер, находящаяся в монастыре Параклет, в ожидании счастливого события в своей жизни - свадьбы, случайно становится свидетельницей загадочной смерти графини Алис де Тоннер. Она и не подозревает, что оказалась замешанной в семейную интригуграфа Ренальда де Тоннера и отныне ее жизнь в смертельной опасности.

Средневековая Франция... Рыцарские турниры, на которых беззаботно развлекается парижская знать, размеренный быт ремесленников и торговцев, приглушенный шепот молитв и едва различимый шелест одежд обитателей монастырей... Но не все так спокойно и мирно в жизни добропорядочных горожан. Словно из темной преисподней стремительно восстает и врывается в их судьбы неведомая сила зла и скверны, сеющая смерть и страдания, насаждающая богохульство и порок. Кто он, этот носитель черных помыслов и коварных планов, осмелившийся извратить Священное Писание?

Catherine LeVendeur is a creature of 12th century France whose life is a mirror of her times--but she is armed with a keen mind and lively curiosity.

When Catherine's grandfather sends for his family to tell them their well is going dry, Catherine is alarmed. The family's wealth depends on its status, and if the well goes dry, their castle will fall. Her grandfather seems wracked with a fear deeper than that, though--and there's a mysterious woman who is either old or young, dead or alive--depending on whom you ask.

Catherine doesn't believe the magical legends her family has handed down, that they are the descendents of a knight of Charlemagne's and a faerie--she puts her faith and distrust in the human condition.

When bodies being appearing--not ghostly specters, but freshly-dead humans--Catherine knows she's right, and must uncover the secrets of the witch in the well...

"The Outcast Dove" is the ninth title in Sharan Newman's Catherine LeVendeur mystery series. In these well-researched novels filled with fascinating details of medieval life, Newman conveys the sounds, smells, and human concerns of twelfth-century France and creates characters who seem to have just stepped off the streets of medieval Paris.
The threat to peace and safety this time is not focused on Catherine LeVendeur, the heroine whose curiosity and passion for justice have sometimes led her to solve some grisly murders and brave horrors...but on those she loves. Her family's fortune is in commerce, and while her husband, Edgar, is a capable trader, they must rely on her dearest cousin, Solomon, to negotiate the treacherous path to riches. And therein lies the danger, for the fact that Solomon is her cousin is secret. Catherine's father was abducted as a child and raised as a devout Catholic---but most of his family escaped and remained Jews.
If their family connections are discovered, it could mean ruin to Catherine's family. Or death.
As Edgar and Solomon travel to Spain to make their fortunes, Solomon is drawn into a scheme to try to rescue a Jewish girl take by Christians during the conquest of the Spanish city of Almeira. To complicate matters, and sorely vex his heart, Solomon encounters his long-lost father Jacob, a man who rejected his Jewish faith and is now Brother James, preparing his own trip to Spain to ransom Crusader knights taken by the Moslems. When a fellow monk is killed by an attacker in the street late at night, it's put down to a random mugging. But James, who is carrying the ransom money, believes that he will be the next target. Circumstances force him to turn for help to the son he abandoned.
Solomon wants nothing to do with his father. But he's confronted by his past, his ancestry, the need for secrecy, and his love for those of his family who have chosen a different path.
In confronting all these things, Solomon will come to a decision about who he is...and where he really belongs.

A Catherine LeVendeur mystery

Catherine LeVendeur is a creature of twelfth-century France. Her life is a mirror of that time but she is a unique spirit, determined to make her way in the world and armed with a keen mind and a curiosity that often puts her in peril. Her life is both a reflection of the bonds placed upon a woman in her society and the ways in which a strong personality can triumph and succeed in spite of those strictures. Catherine is fiercely loyal to both her faith and her family . . . and this loyalty is sometimes sorely tested because of a dreaded family secret. Raised a devout Catholic, she knows that if her family's Jewish roots are exposed, all she loves will be destroyed.

But how far will she go to protect that secret? When her dearest friend in the world, Astrolabe, the son of the fabled theologian Peter Abelard and Heloise, flees wrongful prosecution for the vicious murder of a young woman, Catherine's family takes him in to hide. But there are darker forces than murder at work here. Someone wishes to use Astrolabe to complete the destruction of his father's fame in the name of faith . . . and there are those who would see the destruction of the very order of Christian life.

And Catherine's family is caught right in the middle of the conflict. While she has experienced love and loss, her life is committed to preserving what peace she can for those she loves. How far will Catherine go to save her friend, and what will this sacrifice do to her family's future?

Heresy is the eighth title in Sharan Newman's critically acclaimed Catherine LeVendeur medieval mystery series. Sharan Newman has used extensive research to give us a fascinating panorama of twelfth-century France that is rich in historical detail, and she puts flesh to bone by creating portraits of people who are not so different from ourselves. Filled with fascinating details of medieval life and the intricate interplay between the Christian and Jewish cultures of the time, Heresy is a compelling mystery and a riveting historical rolled into one.

Heaven has a way of playing with mortals. When the mummified arm of St. Aldhelm is stolen from the Salisbury Cathedral in England, Catherine LeVendeur must find the lost reliquary to save those she loves -- and to do so, she must finally confront and come to terms with her family's Jewish heritage. The first Catherine Le Vendeur mystery to appear in trade paperback, The Wandering Arm is an absorbing, richly authentic adventure.
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

In The Difficult Saint, Sharan Newman returns to medieval France and the murder-haunted Catherine LeVendeur, heroine of this acclaimed series. After a harrowing stay with Catherine's in-laws in Scotland, Catherine and her husband, Edgar, have returned home with their two small children to live a life of peace at last--or so they hope. But soon the safety of those they love is questioned as anti-Jewish sentiment begins to grow in Paris. Raised Catholic by her father, Hubert, who poses as a Christian while practicing Judaism in secret, Catherine fears that the violence of the most recent crusade will repeat itself, victimizing members of her family. but before she can put too much thought into that, fate interrupts.

Catherine's estranged younger sister, Agnes, has returned to Paris with the news that she has been promised in marriage to a German lord. Bitter about their religious differences Agnes wants no part of Catherine or Hubert--except for the sizable dowry that Hubert can provide. When Catherine and Hubert arrange for Agnes to be escorted to Germany with her dowry, they assume that they have seen the last of her.

But then one of Agnes's escorts returns to Paris with terrible news: Agnes's new husband appears to have been murdered by poisoning, and Agnes is the prime suspect. In spite of their differences, Catherine believes in her innocence, and knows that she must do everything she can to save her sister's life. And when Catherine and her brood travel to Germany to begin sleuthing in a dangerously anti-Semetic climate, it becomes clear that Catherine and Edgar's long-dreamt of life of peace remains in the distant future--if they live to see it at all.

The fifth in Sharan Newman's highly authentic and richly praised series, Cursed in the Blood finds Catherine LeVendeur venturing to the cold and tumultuous homeland of her husband - only to realize that vast differences between Edgar's family and her own. After making the pilgrimage to Compostela and giving birth to a son, Catherine LeVendeur is looking forward to an idyllic life at home in Paris. Yet her contentment is shattered when she and Edgar receive news from his family: Edgar's two oldest brothers have been ambushed and murdered, and he must return to Scotland to help avenge their deaths. At first, Edgar refuses to go, knowing what may await them in his war torn homeland. But Catherine believes in family loyalty and insists upon accompanying him with their baby.

Once in Scotland, Catherine is surprised to learn that Edger's family is not what she imagined: His father, Waldeve, is a cold tyrant, and his remaining siblings are distant and secretive. Separated from Edgar during their efforts to uncover the truth, Catherine is expelled from his family's care. She becomes a stranger in a strange land, searching for refuge in a country ravaged by civil war at the same time she searches for her husband. Yet she knows that any haven she finds will only be temporary until she answers this question: Who among Waldeve's enemies hates his passionately enough to destroy his whole family - including, she fears, his infant grandson?