Tudor Fiction

The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents.

This 5th volume of the Marie Antoinette Romances begins after the fall of the Bastille and the March on Versailles, which forced Louis XVI and his court to be escorted back to Paris. In Paris, political factions battle over the fate of the nation, the royal family, and anyone with royalist sympathies. Our heroes (like Ange Pitou) and our anti-heroes (like Gilbert) must navigate the blood-streaked landscape while keeping their necks out of the guillotine. All the while, the prophetic Balsamo urges on the revolution.

Thomasin Marwood is one of Queen Catherine's ladies-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII, and she does not trust Lady Anne Boleyn. But when an accident forces Thomasin and her family to take refuge at the Boleyn family home at Hever Castle, Thomasin is entrusted with an unexpected mission by Anne's mother.

In 1483, Edward and Richard of York—Edward, by law, already King of England—were placed, for their protection before Edward's coronation, in the Tower of London by their uncle Richard. Within months the boys disappeared without a trace, and for the next five hundred years the despised Richard III was suspected of their heartless murders.

In To the Tower Born, Robin Maxwell ingeniously imagines what might have happened to the missing princes.

You are formally invited to the Highland wedding event of the year. (Regrets Only!) Their marriage was two decades in the making. Elizabeth Hay is young, educated, and has her own ideas about her life. Alexander Macpherson is a Highlander and a pirate and not about to be tied down to some delicate court flower. But honor dictates they go through with the betrothal arranged when they were still children. Now the wedding ceremony is only a week away. Each wants to put an end to the nuptials, but fate has a way of bollixing the best-made plans. As the biggest storm in memory sweeps through ...

DECEMBER 1944 In New Guinea, a young Australian nurse, Lotte Wyld, chances upon her first love, Virgil Nicholson, a soldier in the Allies' hard-fought jungle campaign. At Los Alamos in the United States, idealistic physicists Miriam Carver and Fred Johnson join Robert Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists in a collective dream to build a weapon that will stop all war, while Kitty Oppenheimer wrestles with restrictions on her freedom. And on the sacred island of Miyajima in Japan, Hiroko Narushima is doing her best to protect her family.

Frenchwoman Avril Montdidier is on a mission: to emigrate to Australia and start her own fashion business, leaving the tragedies of the Second World War behind her. She has family in Melbourne and an apprenticeship at Dior in Paris under her tailored belt, so the future seems bright. Avril settles into 1950s Melbourne and makes friends and contacts for her business-to-be. But just as she's ready to begin, an event in her personal life forces her to make the difficult decision to flee to a cattle station in southern Queensland to work as a nanny. It is here Avril meets Tim.

1572. Europe is in turmoil. A vengeful faction of exiled English Catholics is scattered about the continent, plotting to overthrow Queen Elizabeth and install her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. And in the Netherlands, the streets are red with the blood of those who dare to oppose the brutal Spanish occupation. But amid the unrest, one resourceful young woman has made a lucrative enterprise...Scottish-born Fenella Doorn salvages crippled vessels.

When an American Airlines plane explodes in the sky, detectives Alex Cross and John Sampson are first on the scene. They don't hear the gunfire. At first. The weapon that took down the plane is a remote-controlled Vietnam-War-era machine gun. The list of those who possess the training and expertise to operate the stolen .50-caliber weapon is short. And time runs even shorter. But this isn't the only case the pair must solve. They're also tracking a serial killer who's ambushing young men in what the media are calling the 'Dead Hours' murders.

Meet single mum Samantha, entrepreneur Rhea, and first-time mother Tahlie, all from different walks of life, brought together by their weekly mum and baby group in the town of Hickory Creek. Here they all find support—and a moment's peace—in the haze of raising their new-borns. But when the group is cancelled due to a lack of funds, it looks like the invaluable support they received will be no more.

Get the next two compelling books in the series. Richard and Jack are set on a mission to sell a stolen arms shipment to the Knight's of St John - how badly wrong could it go? Follow their adventures through Europe and the Malta to the Island fortress of the Knights. The backdrop to their own struggle is the political tension in England. Mary I, convinced God has given her the task of returning England to the true faith sends the Protestant reformers a stark and violent message.

One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, after 48 hours, she came back. Though she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what had happened to her. But something happened to my sister. I can't explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn't the same. She wasn't my Annie. I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister.

Bree Johnston has given up trying to be the perfect lawyer. It's time to focus on her own dreams, so she decides to leave the city and set up an alpaca farm and wool shop. Her grandmother Rose might be her only supporter, but that's fine. Bree's done trying to win her parents' approval. She finds the perfect property in the charming small town of Wagtail Ridge but gets more than she bargained for when sparks start flying with the handsome real estate agent.

Patty McNeal isn't sure of much in life except that she wants to help turn the house her mother just bought into a bed and breakfast and create a happy life for her baby, who is due soon. Theresa Garland is working as a foreman for her father's construction company. He assigns her a job working for Patty McNeal's mother. The two young women are on different paths that converge. They will have to get over the pain from the past caused by other people and their fears of the future to build a life together.

Lord Simon James Winston, seventh Marquis of Breckinridge, can have anything he wants, except the woman he loves. After Chandra, his lover of two years, spurns his marriage offer, he does his best to forget her. When friends discussed the services of Madame Eve one night over cards, it seems like just the thing to get him over his heartbreak.

As a little girl Katherine of Aragon was betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII of England, and was raised in the palace of the Alhambra, knowing that she would be queen of England. In 1501, the teenage Spanish princess arrives in her new kingdom, but the future is turned upside down with the death of her handsome young husband - only six months after the wedding. Transformed from beloved bride to superfluous widow, Katherine endures hardship and loneliness as the Tudor court slowly squeezes her out of royal circles.

A young boy from Shropshire named Will Somers has a special talent for entertaining. His gifts bring him all the way to the court of Henry VIII where he becomes a favoured servant and close companion of the king. In his role as the royal fool, he observes the life and times of Henry and his court. He witnesses the successive rise and fall of his queens, nobles and ministers. He is the only one whom Henry trusts with his true thoughts. “The Tudor Fool” tells the story of the unlikely relationship between a tyrannical king and his humble jester.

Gennaio 1558, Kingsbridge. Quando il giovane Ned Willard fa ritorno a casa, si rende conto che il suo mondo sta per cambiare radicalmente. Solo la vecchia cattedrale sopravvive immutata, testimone di una città lacerata dal conflitto religioso. Tutti i principi di lealtà, amicizia e amore verranno sovvertiti. Figlio di un ricco mercante protestante, Ned vorrebbe sposare Margery Fitzgerald, figlia del sindaco cattolico della città, ma il loro amore non basta a superare le barriere degli opposti schieramenti religiosi.

In a world fractured by belief, the gods lay claim to the Ever–ancient magic that sustains the Known World. But the Ever is failing, and the gods have turned their wrath on the Ever Blessed, those gifted with access to its power. Captain Elva, warrior princess of Vettona, is her realm's last hope for peace. Promised in marriage to the handsome yet infuriating Fynton, she must navigate a fragile alliance and her growing feelings for the one man she cannot trust.

A young boy grows up dreaming of knights and chivalry. Harry is the second son. He is never meant to rule. But the death of his brother changes everything, and great destiny awaits this young prince. One day he will be the most infamous king in English history. Henry VIII. His story.