Exploring the creation of the El Cid legend over the centuries, this masterful and evocative biography peels away the layers of myth to reveal the real-life historical figure. El Cid was perhaps the most famous warrior involved in the indiscriminate fighting—irrespective of religion—on the Iberian Peninsula during the eleventh century. In the centuries after his death, he was transformed into a perfect Christian knight. In modernity, he was...

Historians refer to the Spanish Civil War as one of the bloodiest wars of the twentieth century. In 1937, at Mexico's request and offer, nearly 500 children from Spain - remembered as Los Ninos de Morelia - were relocated via ship to Mexico to escape the war's violence. These children traveled across the sea without their families and were expected to return at the war's end. No one could have foreseen another world war was on the way - or that that...

Odelle Bastien, a Caribbean emigre living in London in 1967, discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. As she tries to sort through the conflicting stories of its discovery, she does not know who to believe, including her art gallery colleague, Marjorie Quick. The mystery surrounding the painting includes Olive Schloss, the...

Luis de Santangel, chancellor to the court and longtime friend of the lusty King Ferdinand, has had enough of the Spanish Inquisition. As the power of Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada grows, so does the brutality of the Spanish church and the suspicion and paranoia it inspires. When a dear friend's demise brings the violence close to home, Santangel takes retribution into his own hands, though the risk is great. Santangel is from a family of...

In 1570s Spain, Calvino, an Andalusian horse, is purchased from the Moreno estate in Seville to join King Phillip's stable in Cordoba.

In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage...

A biography of Queen Isabella I of Spain, who made it possible for Christopher Columbus to sail west, and whose fierce support of Catholicism led to the expulsion from Spain of non-converted Jews and Moslems.