H W Coyle

Set in Tudor England, and drawing on Mark Twain's tale, The Prince and the Pauper and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, this historical fiction tells of a young Lady Elizabeth, eager to experience life beyond the palace walls and Henry, an orphan boy seeking to flee the brutal conditions that are his lot in life. Though born into very different worlds, they are so close in age and looks that they could be twins. What begins as a lark and a case of mistaken identity evolves into an adventure of a lifetime for the two youths, one that is as dangerous as it is exciting in ways neither could have ever imagined in their wildest dreams. The freedom the Lady Elizabeth enjoys while assuming the role of a boy is tempered by the cruel realities of battle. For Henry, what should have been nothing more than a brief respite from a life of deprivation becomes something more as he is drawn into court intrigues that can be just as vicious and unforgiving as the back alleys of 16th Century London. As the two youths carefully tread their way along uncharted paths, the English King arranges for the betrothal of the Lady Elizabeth. Though he is no longer at court, Sir Robert finds he has no other choice but to do all he can to keep that from occurring, least his ploy to pass Henry off as Elizabeth is discovered. When she learns of this, Lady Elizabeth, aided by Sir Thomas, races back to England in an effort to undo a comedy of errors that threatens to turn deadly.

The lives of two people, separated by centuries, are drawn together as the mystery surrounding a portrait believed to be an undiscovered work by a Renaissance master is unraveled. Megan Ellsworth, an art historian with a past she'd rather forget, is offered the opportunity to research the origins of a portrait purchased by an entrepreneur. With the help of an army reserve officer who handles odd jobs for the entrepreneur, a man so different than any she'd ever worked with before, Megan finds herself drawn into a story that winds its way through the Byzantine world of late Renaissance politics, a time of great beauty set against a backdrop of unimaginable brutality. Along the way, the subject of the portrait takes on a life that mesmerizes her, for she slowly comes to appreciate she and a young woman dubbed "The English Courtesan" are, in so many ways, alike.

Jordan Allen Wallace is anything but your typical NYU sophomore. A veteran, Jordan's obsessive focus on his academics, coupled with a physical appearance that often causes people to mistake him for a female, sets him apart from his fellow students. With the exception of his sister, Emma, he has no friends to speak of and little in the way of a social life. That changes when Jordan meets Emma's boyfriend, Conner, an FBI agent. What starts out as a prank turns into something serious when Conner seizes upon Jordan's unique qualities to help him obtain information about a professor at NYU, who fought the Soviets with the Mujahideen before coming to America. Repeated failures to slip an informant into the professor's inner circle forces Conner's superiors at the FBI to resort to methods that are progressively more unusual. In Jordan, Conner believes he has found a perfect, if somewhat novel, solution. That solution involves a practice popular among some of northern Afghanistan's ruling elite. Known as bacch , adolescent Afghani males dress as females in order to entertain their masters. Step by step, Jordan goes from participating in some innocent fun to becoming an informer. In the process of adopting a lifestyle that is as foreign as it is challenging, Jordan finds he must come to terms with his own sexuality and gender. Doing so is difficult as he discovers time and time again that he has entered a world of shadows and lies, a place where neither friend nor lover can be trusted.