Widowed at the age of 19, she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her household for love, and then carved out a new life for herself.

    And on learning the truth about her lascivious and despotic father, Henry VIII, she vows never to relinquish control to any man. But this avowal doesn't prevent Elizabeth from pursuing a torrid love affair with her horsemaster, Robin Dudley -- described with near-shocking candor -- as too are Anne's graphic trysts with a very persistent and lustful Henry. Blending a historian's attention to accuracy with a novelist's artful rendering, Maxwell weaves compelling descriptions of court life and devastating portraits of actual people into her naughty, page-turning tale. The result is a masterpiece of historical fiction -- so prophetic of our time that one would think it were ripped from today's headlines.

    Spanning the period from the 1880s to World War II, this wonderful historical novel tells the story of Emily Ratcliffe, whose fateful choices as a young woman exact a terrible toll not only on her own life, but on the lives of those dearest to her.