The New York Times bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series explores the private side of the legendary king Henry VIII and his dramatic and violent reign in this extraordinary historical novel. Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his rule, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others.

"The king will decide what is treason..." These are words Catherine Carey has heard before, and they’ve always led to the block. As a girl, she saw her aunt Anne Boleyn go to the scaffold. Now, she might see yet another queen suffer the same fate. She has to decide. To serve her mistress would be treason, to abandon her would mean the doom of a good lady.

England, 1469. As the War of the Roses rages on, Margaret Paston knows that there is only one way to survive the loss of the Paston's family seat, Caister Castle: a fortunate marriage for one of her unruly daughters. A favourable match will change the future of her family overnight but a scandal will ruin the Paston name forever.

The year is 1483. Just as beautiful Lady Arabella Grey, the young cousin of England's King Richard III, speaks her wedding vows to Sir Jasper Keane, the Scotsman Tavis Stewart, Earl of Dunmore, abducts Arabella as payment for Jasper's murder of his fiancee. Irresistibly, deliciously, Arabella surrenders to her enemy with fierce abandon - knowing that there may be only one way to get what is rightfully hers....

Adora's mahogany hair and violet eyes captivated young Prince Murad the moment he saw her in a convent garden, and their love flowered like the peach blossoms surrounding them. But Orkahm, Grand Turk of an empire, claimed Adora for his bride, tearing her from her young love as she wept bitter tears. Destiny might carry them to other lands and other loves, but Murad and Adora were meant only for each other - forging a magnificent love that lies forever in the pages of history....

It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.

Mary Tudor, the headstrong younger sister of the ruthless King Henry VII, has always been her brother's favorite—but now she is also an important political bargaining chip. When she is promised to the elderly, ailing King Louis of France, a heartbroken Mary accepts her fate, but not before extracting a promise from her brother: When the old king dies, her next marriage shall be solely of her choosing. For Mary has a forbidden passion, and is determined, through her own cunning, courage, and boldness, to forge her own destiny.

In the years after Bosworth, a small boy is ripped from his rightful place as future king of England. Years later, when he reappears to take back his throne, his sister, Elizabeth, now queen to the invading king, Henry Tudor, is torn between family loyalty and duty. As the final struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster is played out, Elizabeth is torn by conflicting loyalty, terror, and unexpected love.

Anne Easter Smith has studied this king and his period for several decades and has given us a compelling and real portrait of a three-dimensional man of his time - neither saint nor Shakespeare’s monster. Richard was known as a loyal brother, compassionate king, faithful husband, and courageous warrior, all the while hiding his cruel scoliosis. This Son of York’s themes are about duty and loyalty, but they also incorporate love, passion, tragic loss and a king’s caring for the common man.

The Court of François I is full of lust, intrigue, and bawdy bon temps—a different world from the quiet country life Diane de Poitiers led with her elderly husband. Now a widow, the elegant Diane is called back to Court, where the King's obvious interest marks her as an enemy to the King's favorite, Anne d'Heilly. The Court is soon electrified by rumors of their confrontations. As Anne calls on her most venomous tricks to drive Diane away, Diane finds an ally in the one member of Court with no allegiance to the King's mistress: his teenage second son, Henri.

The child of a scheming father and ruthless mother, Lady Jane Grey is born during a time when ambition dictates action. Cousin to Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, she is merely a pawn in a political and religious game in which one false step means a certain demise. But Lady Jane has remarkable qualities that help her to withstand the constant pressures of the royal machinery far better than most expect.

A princess of Spain, Catalina is only 16 years old when she sets foot on the shores of England. The youngest daughter of the powerful monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Catalina is a coveted prize for a royal marriage - and Arthur, Prince of Wales and heir to the English throne, has won her hand. But tragedy strikes, and Catalina, now Princess Katherine, is betrothed to the future Henry VIII.

Sent on an impossible mission by Kingfountain's ruler into the heart of the enemy's capital as two mighty kingdoms prepare for war, Ankarette Tryneowy must divine the location of a magical sword, perhaps their key to victory. What she finds is the truth - one she could never have foreseen.

Jasmine had been forced into marriage twice. Rebelling at King James's decree that she wed Jemmie Leslie, fifth earl of Glenkirk, she fled to France with her children. But her youngest, the illegitimate offspring of Jasmine's lover, Prince Henry Stuart, is also the king's only grandson. Now the man coming after her and her little boy is the man she both fears and desires....

To the world, she was Princess Victoria, daughter of a queen, wife of an emperor, and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Her family just called her Vicky...smart, pretty, and self-assured, she changed the course of the world. January 1858: Princess Victoria glides down the aisle of St. James Chapel to the waiting arms of her beloved, Fritz, Prince Frederick, heir to the powerful kingdom of Prussia.

For fans of ALISON WEIR and PHILIPPA GREGORY ◆ FIRST PLACE WINNER - 2023 CHAUCER Book Awards - Early Historical Fiction ◆ WINNER - 2023 READERS' FAVORITE Awards - Fiction-Historical-Personage ◆ Royalty ◆ Power ◆ Politics ◆ Love ◆ Struggle Bestselling biographer and historian Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens and The Tudors in Love, calls this tale of early 16th-century Europe's most brilliant power broker “Compelling and wholly convincing—at once a vividly readable novel and a long-overdue presentation of Europe's unsung heroine to the broad audience she deserves....

May 1483: The Tower of London. When King Edward IV dies and Lady Elysabeth Scrope delivers her young godson, Edward V, into the Tower of London to prepare for his coronation, she is engulfed in political turmoil. Within months, the prince and his brother have disappeared, Richard III is declared king, and Elysabeth's sister Margaret Beaufort conspires with her son Henry Tudor to invade England and claim the throne. Desperate to protect her godson, Elysabeth battles the intrigue, betrayal and power of the last medieval court to keep Prince Edward safe.

Mary Tudor, the headstrong younger sister of the ruthless King Henry VII, has always been her brother's favorite—but now she is also an important political bargaining chip. When she is promised to the elderly, ailing King Louis of France, a heartbroken Mary accepts her fate, but not before extracting a promise from her brother: When the old king dies, her next marriage shall be solely of her choosing. For Mary has a forbidden passion, and is determined, through her own cunning, courage, and boldness, to forge her own destiny.

The Court of François I is full of lust, intrigue, and bawdy bon temps—a different world from the quiet country life Diane de Poitiers led with her elderly husband. Now a widow, the elegant Diane is called back to Court, where the King's obvious interest marks her as an enemy to the King's favorite, Anne d'Heilly. The Court is soon electrified by rumors of their confrontations. As Anne calls on her most venomous tricks to drive Diane away, Diane finds an ally in the one member of Court with no allegiance to the King's mistress: his teenage second son, Henri.

Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized—and largely mythical—notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of Edward I, often known as Longshanks. The lives of these sisters—Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth—ran the gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages.

Historians have long whispered that Elizabeth "the Virgin Queen's" passionate, lifelong affair with Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester, may have led to the birth of a son, Arthur Dudley. In this exquisite sequel to The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, Robin Maxwell fashions a stunning fictional account of the child switched at birth by a lady-in-waiting who foresaw the deleterious political consequences of a royal bastard.

To contemporaries, the Wars of the Roses were known collectively as a "cousins' war." The series of dynastic conflicts that tore apart the ruling Plantagenet family in 15th-century England was truly a domestic drama, as fraught and intimate as any family feud before or since. As acclaimed historian Sarah Gristwood reveals in Blood Sisters, while the events of this turbulent time are usually described in terms of the male leads who fought and died seeking the throne, a handful of powerful women would prove just as decisive as their kinfolks' clashing armies.

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

This insightful look at the life of Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt casts new light on a period in history often held up as legend. A great English hero, Henry V was lionized by Shakespeare and revered by his countrymen for his religious commitment, his sense of justice, and his military victories. Here, noted historian and biographer Ian Mortimer takes a look at the man behind the legend and offers a clear, historically accurate, and realistic representation of a ruler who was all too human.

A life of Matilda - empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages.

Each Tudor monarch made their name with a Dudley by their side—or by crushing one beneath their feet. The Dudleys thrived at the court of Henry VII but were sacrificed to the popularity of Henry VIII. Rising to prominence in the reign of Edward VI, the Dudleys lost it all by advancing Jane Grey to the throne over Mary I. That was until the reign of Elizabeth I, when the family was once again at the center of power and would do anything to remain there . . . With three generations of felled favorites, what was it that caused this family to keep rising so high and falling so low?

Holding power for over 50 years starting in 1327, Edward III was one of England's most influential kings and one who shaped the course of English history. Revered as one of the country's most illustrious leaders for centuries, he was also a usurper and a warmonger who ordered his uncle beheaded. A brutal man, to be sure, but also a brilliant one.

As a child, he was given his own suit of armor; at the age of 16, he helped defeat the French at Crecy. At Poitiers, in 1356, his victory over King John II of France forced the French into a humiliating surrender that marked the zenith of England's dominance in the Hundred Years War. As lord of Aquitaine, he ruled a vast swathe of territory across the west and southwest of France, holding a magnificent court at Bordeaux that mesmerized the brave but unruly Gascon nobility. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, and better known to posterity as "the Black Prince".

*** 2020 Chaucer Book Awards Long List *** England, AD 1471. The Wars of the Roses ravage England. After six months of turmoil, Yorkist King Edward IV has shattered his enemies and reclaimed his throne. As one of the last surviving Lancastrians, young Henry Tudor flees with his uncle Jasper to keep his head from adorning London Bridge beside his grandfather’s. He won’t return for fourteen long years. Blown by storms to Brittany, Henry is trapped between the king who hunts him and a duke who views him as leverage. Though his mother labors in England to restore his lands and titles, Henry...

For William Marshall, the greatest knight of the realm, serving royalty is an unpredictable business. Having survived the threat of beheading from Stephen as a child, Marshall rises from nothing to a place in court serving King Henry II. Accused of acting on his love for the beautiful Queen Margaret, William is saved by his trust and loyalty to the king. But the battle for the throne is relentless, and when Henry's own son John rises against him, William must decide if he can remain loyal to the crown.