About the Book:

It is the winter of 1502 and the Spanish and French Armies are contesting for control of the income and lands of the defunct Kingdom of Naples.  Baltasar Albueno and his courtesan friend, Sheba of Tigre, enter into the conflict as agents of Venice on the Spanish side.  The French have the edge with money, numbers and arms, but the Spanish have Gonsalvo of Cordoba, the most successful general of the era.  The rest of Europe and the Ottoman Turks look on and hope for a costly and enervating stalemate between the two emerging superpowers as Gonsalvo’s defensive combined-arms and hit-and-run tactics discomfit the French with their seemingly invincible offensive array of heavy cavalry, Swiss pike, and the new, fortress-reducing mobile artillery.

Baltasar and Sheba, experienced and skeptical observers of their masters’ follies, combine intelligence gathering with private commerce. They bend their efforts to avoiding violence, making their fortunes, and assuring a rapid escape should things go awry.  Theirs is a story of friendship and mutual need evolving into an improbable and enduring love as, with imagination and spirit (and an occasional homicide), they strive to survive and even flourish in a war made increasingly lethal with new weapons and tactics.

“The tentative and naïve Baltasar of Venetian Exile has emerged as a man in full in The Italian Wars: experienced, skeptical, resourceful and inner-directed.  The girl, Sheba, has fared even better.  A formidable and sexy team, of which we expect much in the future.”

“…rescues Gonsalvo of Cordoba from an undeserved obscurity in the English-speaking world.  One of the great and innovative military figures of Renaissance Europe.”

 “An action-packed tale with a humorous and unobtrusive subtext reflecting on diplomacy, commerce, war, espionage, assassination, the flesh trade, predestination, and the Sacrament of Penance—a piquant and sumptuous banquet for the lover of historical fiction.”

About the Author:

Robert Elwood Burns is a native of Kentucky, educated at the University of Kentucky, M.I.T., and Harvard in Civil Engineering and Economics. After college, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia. Through the auspices of the Harvard University Development Advisory Service, he served as an advisor on transportation to the governments of Colombia, Pakistan, and Ethiopia. He subsequently had a twenty-year career with the World Bank as a technical writer and economic analyst for large-scale infrastructure projects around the world, including China, India, Indonesia, Argentina and Mexico. He is the father of six and lives with his wife, Suchila, in Bangkok and Philadelphia.

His first novel, Punjab Nights: Work, Love, and Vengeance in the Land of Five Rivers, was published by Llumina Press in 2005. His second novel, Venetian Exile, was the first of the Baltasar Albueno series of historical adventures. It was published by Llumina Press in 2007. The Italian Wars is the second in that series. A third volume, The Spice Wars, is under preparation.

For excerpts from his fiction, purchase information, and for his views on writing and publishing, see his website: www.relwoodburns.org. Comments and questions may be addressed to him at booksburns@gmail.com