The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure: a sickly child, she is drawn towards improper pursuits. Cards, sweetmeats, scandal and gossip with her Ladies of the Bedchamber figure large in her life. But as King Charles' niece, Anne is also a political pawn, who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. Transformed from overlooked princess to the heiress of England, she will be compelled to overcome grief for her lost children, the political maneuverings of her sister and her closest friends, and her own betrayal of her father, before the fullness of her destiny is revealed.

The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure: a sickly child, she is drawn towards improper pursuits. Cards, sweetmeats, scandal and gossip with her Ladies of the Bedchamber figure large in her life. But as King Charles' niece, Anne is also a political pawn, who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. Transformed from overlooked princess to the heiress of England, she will be compelled to overcome grief for her lost children, the political maneuverings of her sister and her closest friends, and her own betrayal of her father, before the fullness of her destiny is revealed.

Unfolding in the heady world of the glittering Restoration court, A WANT OF KINDNESS follows an expendable princess on her unlikely progress to becoming queen, through the religion, politics, disease, deceit and treachery of the time.

The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure: a sickly child, she is drawn towards improper pursuits. Cards, sweetmeats, scandal and gossip with her Ladies of the Bedchamber figure large in her life. But as King Charles' niece, Anne is also a political pawn, who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty.

Transformed from overlooked princess to the heiress of England, she will be forced to overcome grief for her lost children, the political maneuverings of her sister and her closest friends, and her own betrayal of her father, before the fullness of her destiny is revealed. In A WANT OF KINDNESS, Limburg has created a richly realized time and world, and in Anne, a complex and all-too-human protagonist.

Orvieto. Its very name brings to mind priceless art, colorful ceramics, straw-colored wine, and the most famous cathedral façade in Italy, a structure of gothic spires, arches, statues and mosaics. When Rick Montoya moved to Italy to work as a freelance translator using his dual heritage, he didn’t expect to be helping the Italian police. During his fourth investigation, his language skills draw him into the brutal murder of an American visitor. Strong suspects, tantalizing secrets, concealed motives and risky behaviors tie to a fascinating landscape and layers of Orvieto’s past.

Orvieto. Its very name brings to mind priceless art, colorful ceramics, straw-colored wine, and the most famous cathedral façade in Italy, a structure of gothic spires, arches, statues and mosaics. When Rick Montoya moved to Italy to work as a freelance translator using his dual heritage, he didn’t expect to be helping the Italian police. During his fourth investigation, his language skills draw him into the brutal murder of an American visitor. Strong suspects, tantalizing secrets, concealed motives and risky behaviors tie to a fascinating landscape and layers of Orvieto’s past.

Orvieto --- its very name brings to mind priceless art, colorful ceramics, straw-colored wine and the most famous cathedral façade in Italy, a structure of gothic spires, arches, statues and mosaics. But as Rick Montoya discovers, this jewel of Umbria can have an ugly side as well.

When Rick Montoya moved to his mother’s Italy from his father’s Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work as a freelance translator using his dual heritage, he didn’t expect to be helping the Italian police. His maternal uncle, a high-level commissioner in Rome, however, sees no reason not to use the resources at hand.

Rick’s fourth investigation should not have involved crime. It begins when Rick is asked by his uncle to go to Orvieto to talk some sense into his cousin Fabrizio, whose fling with an older married woman is embarrassing the family. Rick agrees to give it a try, and plans a short but romantic weekend in Orvieto with Betta Innocenti, the woman he met in Bassano. What could go wrong?

Less than a day after their arrival, his language skills draw him into the brutal murder of an American visitor. He finds that he knows the policeman in charge, but Inspector LoGuercio has changed since the time they met in Volterra. The murdered woman had studied art in Italy decades earlier --- why has she returned now? And why was she dumped at night on a dusty road? Through her traveling companions, her devastated daughter and best friend, as well as a growing list of those who knew her from her student days, they realize she had come to Orvieto to face the past. And then a second murder occurs in a public park, with Montoya so close that he wonders if he could have been the intended target. Is all this connected to Fabrizio and his affair, or to the American’s death? More violence erupts, some of it definitely directed at Rick himself.

Strong suspects, tantalizing secrets, concealed motives and risky behaviors tie to a fascinating landscape and layers of Orvieto’s past.

Audiobook available, read by David Colacci