On Jun 10, 2024, Candlemark & Gleam will release Jo Graham’s riveting historical fantasy The Borgia Dove (second in the series Memoirs of the Borgia Sibyl after A Blackened Mirror): Giulia Farnese is known to historians as a formidably learned and intelligent advisor to two Renaissance popes. But in Graham’s vision Giulia is also a seer, despite the dangers of such a talent in her era. Transposing the myth of Persephone and Hades onto the opulent Rome of the Borgias, The Borgia Dove is kin to Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel works and Guy Gavriel Kay’s imaginative transmutations.

The Borgia Dove boasts a stunning cover by Alexael and received high praise from genre legends Sherwood Smith and Melissa Scott, best-selling authors E.K. Johnston and K.V. Johansen, Borgia scholar Samantha Morris and Hugo nominee Paul Weimer. The digital version is available for pre-order at Amazon, B&N and Kobo; and if all goes as it should, the paperback pre-order should also go live within a week. Here’s its synopsis to whet appetites:

1492: Giulia Farnese is the mistress of the powerful Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. Educated, brave and ambitious, Giulia revels in the art and ideas of the Renaissance and in her newfound influence as the consort of one of the leaders of the humanist movement within the Vatican. The gifts of prophecy and magic that made her a weapon against Rodrigo but allowed her to save his life are gone with her virginity—or so she thinks.

Now the pope is dying, plunging Rome into lawless chaos until a new pope can be elected. The most likely candidates want to purge Rome of heresy, endangering both Giulia’s friends and the fragile Renaissance itself. A dark horse candidate who most people underestimate to their peril, Rodrigo is ruthless and clever; but to seize the ultimate prize of the papacy, he’ll need all the help he can get. He relies on Giulia to be his eyes and ears in the world of powerful women and to negotiate on his behalf when the voting cardinals are locked in seclusion.

Drawn into a high-stakes game of bribery and bargains, Giulia discovers all too soon that losing means paying a deadly price. Her only hope of protecting those she cares about from Rodrigo’s enemies lies in mastering the magical gifts she once thought lost. For Giulia to claim the divine power of a pagan priestess may be the ultimate heresy—or a way to win her lover the papal crown.

Jo Graham is the author of thirty books and three online games. Best known for her historical fantasy novels Black Ships and Stealing Fire, and her tie-in novels for MGM’s popular Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: SG-1 series, she has been a Locus Award finalist, an Amazon Top Choice, a Spectrum Award finalist, a Manly Wade Wellman Award finalist, a Romantic Times Top Pick in historical fiction and a Lambda Literary Award and Rainbow Award nominee for bisexual fiction. With Melissa Scott, she is the author of five books in the Order of the Air series, a historical fantasy series set in the 1920s and 30s. She is the author of The Calpurnian Wars space opera series and the historical fantasy series Memoirs of the Borgia Sibyl. She is also the author of three pagan spirituality books. She lives in North Carolina with her partner and is the mother of two daughters.

Because GoodReads giveaways are no longer free and our coffers are of the usual size for indie micro-presses, we will be doing a direct giveaway for The Borgia Dove. You can enter it by leaving a comment to this post or by sending an email (with subject line “Borgia Dove Giveaway”) to our website address. Please rest assured that your email will only be visible to the site admin.

The giveaway will run to midnight of June 9 EST, and random winners will be picked to receive digital copies of the novel. For up to 20 requests, there will be one award copy. For up to 50 requests, two copies; and beyond that, three copies. Although the giveaway will only award digital copies, it will include the PDF that contains all the print flourishes.

We can hardly wait to share this remarkable work and the rest of Giulia’s story with the world. Until then, keep your books safe, your masks pristine, your purse ready for bribes, and visit the title at GR, where you can also see the reviews of Sherwood Smith, Samantha Morris and K.V. Johansen.

Note added on June 9: the giveaway is now closed.  We’ll pick winners and contact them within a week.