As powerful men and women around her became victims of Henry’s ruthless and absolute power, including her own husband and sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, Jane’s allegiance to the volatile monarchy was sustained and rewarded. But the price for her loyalty would eventually be her undoing and the ruination of her name. For centuries, little beyond rumor and scandal has been associated with “the infamous Lady Rochford.” But now historian Julia Fox sets the record straight and restores dignity to this much-maligned figure whose life and reputation were taken from her.Born to aristocratic parents in the English countryside, young Jane Parker found a suitable match in George Boleyn, brother to Anne, the woman who would eventually be the touchstone of England’s greatest political and religious crisis. Once settled in the bustling, spectacular court of Henry VIII as the wife of a nobleman, Jane was privy to the regal festivities of masques and jousts, royal births and funerals, and she played an intimate part in the drama and gossip that swirled around the king’s court. But it was Anne Boleyn’s descent from palace to prison that first thrust Jane into the spotlight. Impatient with Anne’s inability to produce a male heir, King Henry accused the queen of treason and adultery with a multitude of men, including her own brother, George. Jane was among those interrogated in the scandal, and following two swift strokes from the executioner’s blade, she lost her husband and her sister-in-law, her inheritance and her place in court society.Now the thirty-year-old widow of a traitor, Jane had to ensure her survival and protect her own interests by securing land and income. With sheer determination, she navigated her way back into royal favor by becoming lady-in-waiting to Henry’s three subsequent brides, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, and Catherine Howard. At last Jane’s future seemed secure–until an unwitting misstep involving the sexual intrigues of young Queen Catherine destroyed the life and reputation Jane worked so hard to rebuild.Drawing upon her own deep knowledge and years of original research, Julia Fox brings us into the inner sanctum of court life, laced with intrigue and encumbered by disgrace. Through the eyes and ears of Jane Boleyn, we witness the myriad players of the stormy Tudor period. Jane emerges as a courageous spirit, a modern woman forced by circumstances to fend for herself in a privileged but vicious world.

    The legend says “Thursday’s child has far to go” but nobody knew just how troublesome this journey would prove. Four single friends, a newly married couple and a stoker who works in the belly of the gigantic ship meet that fateful night. When disaster strikes, not all survive. Even the ones who live, have lost something forever in the freezing Atlantic Ocean.

    Her story, as Carolly Erickson re-creates it, is page-turning drama: from the splendors of the Field of the Cloth of Gold to the gory last years of the outsize King Henry, when heads rolled and England trembled, Catherine bestrode her destiny and survived to marry her true love.Catherine Parr attracted the king’s lust and, though much in love with the handsome Thomas Seymour, was thrown into the intrigue-filled snake pit of the royal court. While victims of the king’s wrath suffered torture and execution, Catherine persevered—until, at last, she came within the orbit of the royal fury. King Henry toyed with her, first ordering her arrested, then granting her clemency. She managed to evade execution, but she knew that the king had his wandering eye fixed on wife number seven. She was spared by his death and married the attractive but dangerously unbalanced Seymour. Her triumph was shadowed by rivalry with the young Princess Elizabeth, whose lands and influence the lecherous Seymour coveted. Catherine won the contest, but at great cost.In The Last Wife of Henry VIII, critically acclaimed author Carolly Erickson brings this dramatic story of survival and redemption to life.

    The fourteenth century of my novel will be mainly evoked in terms of smell and visceral feelings, and it will carry an undertone of general disgust rather than hey-nonny nostalgia’ Anthony Burgess, Paris Review, 1973.The Black Prince is a brutal historical tale of chivalry, religious belief, obsession, siege and bloody warfare. From disorientating depictions of medieval battles to court intrigues and betrayals, the campaigns of Edward II, the Black Prince, are brought to vivid life by an author in complete control of the novel as a way of making us look at history with fresh eyes, all while staying true to the linguistic pyrotechnics and narrative verve of Burgess’s best work.

    Flora Chapman is in her fifties when her dashing and infuriating husband, Edward, dies in a bizarre ballooning accident. Ever pragmatic, Flora seizes upon her new freedom and decides to finish Edward’s history of Hurcott Ducis, the village where they’ve spent their married life. A reference to Anna of Cleves, Henry VIII’s fourth wife, unkindly called ‘The Flanders Mare’, captures Flora’s attention and later her affection as she sets about her own research in the hope of elevating Anna’s place in history.Meanwhile, in the Louvre, Holbein’s portrait of Anna senses the tug of a connection and she begins to tell the real story of how she survived her disastrous Tudor marriage.This novel about two intelligent, accomplished women who lived in the shadow of the men they married, interweaves a fascinating and little-known part of history with a broader contemporary tale of love, marriage, self-preservation and motherhood with all their pains, pleasures and humour.

    Trained in combat since he was a youth, and taught the dark arts of war by a brilliant ex-monk, he is determined to prove wrong those who say he is unfit for command. As he follows the trail of devastation left by the raiders, he discovers that Valentina, his half-brother's betrothed, has been taken captive. The mission that he has viewed merely as an adventure now turns into a personal quest to save the headstrong daughter of his father's closest ally from the slave markets of Arabia.In the capital of Toledo, the sudden death of the monarch unravels old alliances, sparking a fierce competition for the throne. As the country descends into civil war, Musa ibn Nosseyr, Caliph al-Walid's ambitious governor in Carthage, sees the Iberian nation's troubles as an opportunity to expand the reach of the caliphate into Europe.

    Believing she'd married one, she surrendered her fate to a monarch whose treatment of his wives would make him notorious.

    His more rounded view of the circumstances in which she found herself and the expectations of her society allows the historical Katherine to emerge.Katherine has long been condemned by historians for being a promiscuous and frivolous consort who partied away her days and revelled in male attention, but Byrne's reassessment conveys the mature and thoughtful ways in which Katherine approached her queenship. It was a tragedy that her life was controlled by predators seeking to advance themselves at her expense, whatever the cost.

    Everything Anne touches seems to turn to gold, and Mary is certain Anne will one day become Queen. But Mary has also seen the King's fickle nature and how easily he discards those who were once close to him. . . Discovering that she is a pawn in a carefully orchestrated plot devised by her father, the duke of Norfolk, Mary dare not disobey him. Yet despite all of her efforts to please him, she too falls prey to his cold wrath. Not until she becomes betrothed to Harry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and son to King Henry VIII, does Mary find the love and approval she's been seeking. But just when Mary believes she is finally free of her father, the tides turn. Now Mary must learn to play her part well in a dangerous chess game that could change her life--and the course of history.

     As the bereft, orphaned cousin to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard knows better than many the danger of being favored by the King. But she is a Howard, and therefore ambitious, so she assumes the role Henry VIII has assigned her-his untouched child bride, his adored fifth wife. But her innocence is imagined, the first of many lies she will have to tell to gain the throne. And the path that she will tread to do so is one fraught with the same dangers that cost Queen Anne her head.

    But she soon finds herself drawn into the perilous web of Anne's ambition.Desperate to hold onto the king's waning affection, Anne schemes to have him take her guileless young cousin as mistress, ensuring her husband's new paramour will owe her loyalty to the queen. But Margaret has fallen deeply in love with a handsome young courtier. She is faced with a terrible dilemma: give herself to the king and betray the love of her life or refuse to become his mistress and jeopardize the life of the her cousin, Queen Anne.

    Having come of age in a time of political turmoil and danger, the man who would become Henry VII spent fourteen years in exile in Brittany before returning triumphantly to the Dorset coast with a small army and decisively winning the Battle of Bosworth Field--ending the War of the Roses once and for all and launching the infamous Tudor dynasty.As Henry's claim to the throne was tenuous, his marriage to Elizabeth of York, daughter and direct heir of King Edward IV, not only served to unify the warring houses, it also helped Henry secure the throne for himself and for generations to come. And though their union was born from political necessity, it became a wonderful love story that led to seven children and twenty happy years together.Sweeping and dramatic, To Hold the Crown brings readers inside the genesis of the great Tudor empire: through Henry and Elizabeth's troubled ascensions to the throne, their marriage and rule, the heartbreak caused by the death of their son Arthur, and, ultimately, to the crowning of their younger son, King Henry VIII."Plaidy excels at blending history with romance and drama." --New York Times

    Before agreeing to the match, after a relentless campaign to get her to say yes, by her loving brother, Mary Rose extracted a promise from Henry. A promise she was determined he would keep.At the French court, Mary Rose was pursued by the witty, charming, but debauched Francis, Louis's heir, who, even at the young age of twenty, was a practised seducer.Between the awful conjugal embraces of her sickly old husband and the persistent and unwanted attentions from Francis, Mary was in a desperately unhappy situation.But then, her ailing husband died, and the lusty Francis was elevated to the French throne and absolute power.Mary Rose thought her situation BEFORE her husband's death was difficult, but then she heard rumours of her kingly brother's plans for her future. And they did not include keeping the promise he made to her.Trapped in an impossible situation, caught between a lustful Francis and the ruthless self-interest of her older brother, the spirited Mary Rose made a fateful decision aware, even as she did so, that she was taking her very life in her hands.

    Tudor histories are rife with "facts" about Henry VIII's life and health, but as a medical anthropologist, Kyra Kramer, author of Blood Will Tell, has learned one should never take those "facts" at face value. In Henry VIII's Health in a Nutshell, Kramer highlights the various health issues that Henry suffered throughout his life and proposes a few new theories for their causes, based on modern medical findings. Known for her readability and excellent grasp of the intricacies of modern medical diagnostics, Kyra Kramer gives the reader a new understanding of Henry VIII's health difficulties, and provides new insights into their possible causes.

    I can never get used to this, Alexi. Having you, that is. How did I deserve you? Deserve me? You don't have to do anything to deserve me. I love you. It's as simple as that. I love you for what you are. All you need to do is love me back. You don't earn love, as a payment in return.Peter Kingsmill's life had run into the sands since the death of his wife. What was a glittering London career had lost its shine. Until, that is, his life is turned upside down by an unexpected collision of events. He inherits the family estate, meets a girl seventeen years his junior and receives an anonymous letter which casts doubt on all the certainties on which he has built his past life.What follows is a journey of discovery which takes him back in time to war-torn Europe. To a story of betrayal in the secret world of spies and double agents, and ultimately to redemption and a bright new life.The narrative moves at speed from the dusty plains of pre-war Poland to the frozen winter landscapes of German-occupied Norway and finally to the gentle pastoral of the north Yorkshire hills. It is a story of a search for the pieces that make up a human life; and of the love that binds those pieces together....Do you remember the Snow Queen story? I can complete the pattern now. I have everything I need.