About
Wendy Corsi Staub has published nearly eighty novels, including multiple New York Times bestsellers and is best known for her psychological suspense and suburban noir. Her latest release, THE BLACK WIDOW, completes a trilogy that began with THE GOOD SISTER, one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Reads of 2013, and the USA Today bestseller, THE PERFECT STRANGER.
Wendy is a two-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and five time winner of the WLA Washington Irving Prize for Fiction, she has also been honored with the RWA Rita, the RWA-NYC Golden Apple for Lifetime Achievement and the RT Bookreviews Career Achievement Award in Suspense. Alter-ego Wendy Markham writes bestselling romance and chick lit. Now writing another suspense trilogy for Harper, she lives in New York.
Godwine Kingmaker: Part One of The Last Great Saxon Earls
Description
<p><span><span>Harold Godwineson, the Last Anglo-Saxon King, owed everything to his father. Who was this Godwine, first Earl of Wessex and known as the Kingmaker? Was he an unscrupulous schemer, using King and Witan to gain power? Or was he the greatest of all Saxon Earls, protector of the English against the hated Normans? The answer depends on who you ask. He was befriended by the Danes, raised up by Canute the Great, given an Earldom and a wife from the highest Danish ranks. He sired nine children, among them four Earls, a Queen and a future King. Along with his power came a struggle to keep his enemies at bay, and Godwine's best efforts were brought down by the misdeeds of his eldest son Swegn. Although he became father-in-law to a reluctant Edward the Confessor, his fortunes dwindled as the Normans gained prominence at court. Driven into exile, Godwine regathered his forces and came back even stronger, only to discover that his second son Harold was destined to surpass him in renown and glory.</span></span></p>
Story Behind The Book
THE PERFECT STRANGER is the second book in my social networking suspense trilogy for HarperCollins. The three novels are connected not by characters or setting, but by theme: do you ever really know who might be lurking behind a familiar screen name on the Internet? Book 1, THE GOOD SISTER (Harper, October 2013), was about cyber-bullying and a fictionalized version of Facebook; Book 3, THE BLACK WIDOW (Harper, March 2015), is about online dating. This one, THE PERFECT STRANGER (Harper, August, 2014), is about a group of breast cancer bloggers who are scattered all over the country and find kindred support and friendship in each other that they haven’t found in their real lives. Now they meet in person for the first time at the funeral for one of their own who was the victim of a random murder—or so they believed. Now they wonder if she shared too much online and if her killer is a fellow blogger who might go after one of them next. For readers who want a bit more of the story, I’ve published an e-novella prequel, COLD HEARTED, which visits a key character a decade before THE PERFECT STRANGER unfolds.
Reviews
<p>“In a word: terrifying. The author’s latest thriller combines a main character who quickly wins the reader’s heart with tense drama that propels the story forward. The well-plotted mystery features a particularly malevolent villain whose actions will make readers think twice about relationships that develop in cyberspace. Four Stars.”<br />
-- <strong><em>RT Bookreviews Magazine</em></strong></p>
