“ ... lots of historical gems to discover.” —Historical Novels Review

“fascinating and engaging” —Reviewer, IPGA Benjamin Franklin Awards

“Kucherenko is one of those gifted people who has the ability to make life appear on the pages. And when you’re reading her work, you get a sense of the time in a way not everybody can do. There’s nothing dry about her work; it lives and breathes, and suddenly 1066 is real.” —Lesley Smith, Curator, Tutbury Castle

A knight on the rise. A countess descending.
A conquest threatened by both.

Alaric the Norman of Ewyas might be William the Conqueror’s greatest weapon. A mercenary knight born and raised among the English, his knowledge of the people and countryside—and his ferocity in battle—are invaluable. Distrusted by his peers, Alaric stands alone after the murder of his pro-Saxon family. To bind his feuding allies, William forces Alaric to marry the murderer’s niece. Genevieve Elysia de Fontenay, known as Elise, is canny, well-connected, and a wealthy Norman countess in her own right. Unaware of the machinations behind her marriage but knowing her future husband signed the terms in anger, she travels amid the hostile English to Tutbury Castle, where they will wed. While Alaric balances respect for the vanquished people against the triumphal savagery of the victor, and Elise navigates between her husband’s spiteful mistress and a volatile king, they both make powerful alliances—and equally powerful enemies.

~ Knight's Pawn is the first book in the Turnabout Books series~


October 25, 2022
$17, paperback, 362 pages
ISBN 9781944453206

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eISBN 9781944453213

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A. L. Kucherenko’s interest in the Middle Ages began with a personal challenge to learn about something she disliked. Soon she discovered a more complicated history than what she had seen from afar. After several years of research and travel along Roman roads and waterways now nearly extinct, she developed a profound respect for the resilient people who came before her, and began writing a fictional account of the era to explore the human story omitted from the sparse lines of medieval documents. She gave voice to the people who faced the enemy within and without, to those whose ideals crumbled, to those who would conquer, and those who would not be vanquished. Her last name, acquired in marriage, is Ukrainian, though she is not. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Visit A. L. Kucherenko online at alkucherenko.com