Armed with a sharp eye, dangerous curiosity, and uncanny intelligence, Ursula pledges...To Shield the Queen Rumor has linked Queen Elizabeth I to her master of horse, Robin Dudley. As gossip would have it, only his ailing wife, Amy, prevents marriage between Dudley and the Queen. To quell the idle tongues at court, the Queen dispatches Ursula Blanchard to tend to the sick woman's needs. But not even Ursula can prevent the "accident" that takes Amy's life. Did she fall or was she pushed? Was Ursula a pawn of Dudley and the Queen?Suddenly Ursula finds herself at the center of the scandal, trying to protect Elizabeth as she loses her heart to a Frenchman who may be flirting with sedition against her Queen. She can trust no one, neither her lover nor her monarch, as she sets out to find the truth in a glittering court that conceals a wellspring of blood and lies.

    An historical mystery set around the turn of the 15th century that addresses the mystery surrounding the purported death of King Richard II.

    Joanna Stafford, a Dominican nun, learns that her favorite cousin has been condemned by Henry VIII to be burned at the stake. Defying the rule of enclosure, Joanna leaves the priory to stand at her cousin’s side. Arrested for interfering with the king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, is sent to the Tower of London.While Joanna is in the Tower, the ruthless Bishop of Winchester forces her to spy for him: to save her father’s life she must find an ancient relic—a crown so powerful, it may possess the ability to end the Reformation.With Cromwell’s troops threatening to shutter her priory, bright and bold Joanna must decide who she can trust so that she may save herself, her family, and her sacred way of life. This provocative story set in Tudor England melds heart-stopping suspense with historical detail and brings to life the poignant dramas of women and men at a fascinating and critical moment in England’s past.

    Your Country. Your Kin. Who Do You Betray?1563: Anyone could be a suspect; any Catholic could be accused of plotting against the throne. Clarenceux keeps his head down and his religion quiet. But when a friend desperately pleads with Clarenceux to hide a manuscript for him, he is drawn into a web of treachery and conspiracy he may never untangle. Is there no refuge if your faith is your enemy?Bestselling author Dr. Ian Mortimer, writing as James Forrester, has crafted a chilling, brilliant story that re-imagines how the explosive mix of faith and fear can tear a country apart. Sacred Treason tells a thrilling story of murder, betrayal, and loyalty--and the power of the written word.

    . . .Bianca Goddard employs her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants to concoct remedies for the disease-riddled poor in London’s squalid Southwark slum. But when her friend Jolyn comes to her complaining of severe stomach pains, Bianca’s prescription seems to kill her on the spot. Recovering from her shock, Bianca suspects Jolyn may have been poisoned before coming to her—but the local constable is not so easily convinced.To clear her name and keep her neck free of the gallows, Bianca must apply her knowledge of the healing arts to deduce exactly how her friend was murdered and by whom—before she herself falls victim to a similar fate.

    It came from Lancashire. John Bexwith, my steward at Appleton Manor, is dead."Susanna frowned, surprised that this news should have affected her husband so strongly. "The man was quite elderly," she said hesitantly, "was he not?""Your memory is excellent," Robert told her, absently tucking an unruly lock of dark brown hair back up under her brocaded cap. "He was found face down in a marrow-bone pie."With that incredible statement, Robert placed the letter in his wife's outstretched hand.Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie is a delightfully cozy Elizabethan mystery introducing Susanna, Lady Appleton. When her husband's steward dies in a unique, ignominious, and highly suspicious manner, Susanna takes advantage of her husband's absence on a political mission for Queen Elizabeth to investigate Bexwith's mysterious demise.The serving wench who found Bexwith claims that he was frightened to death by a ghost, but Susanna can think of several poisons that could have been concealed in the marrow-bone pie. (Susanna is something of an expert on poisons, having been inspired by her sister's fatal encounter with some poisonous berries to write a cautionary herbal for housewives.)Even if Bexwith was poisoned, was it accidental or intentional? As if the case weren't complicated enough, Susanna must also unmask a "ghost"-- or are the ghost and the poisoner one and the same?Kathy Lynn Emerson's debut Elizabethan mystery will delight as it introduces you to a sixteenth-century husband's worst nightmare: an intelligent, no-nonsense wife who happens to know hundreds of poisons.

    Will her death end the ceaseless plotting against Mary’s red-haired cousin, Elizabeth?1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, is a time of more terror and triumph, not just for queen and court but for the whole of England. The turmoil is reflected in its theatres and under the galleries of inns like London’s “The Queen’s Head” where Lord Westfield’s Men perform. The scene there grows even more tumultuous when one of the actors is murdered by a mysterious stranger during a brawl.Nicholas Bracewell, the company’s bookholder (a role far wider than mere producer) faces two immediate repercussions. The first is to secure a replacement acceptable to its temperamental star — and chief shareholder — Lawrence Firethorn. The second is to keep his promise to the dying Will Fowler and catch his killer.Soon further robberies, accidents, and misfortunes strike Lord Westfield’s Men even as their stage successes swell. Bracewell begins to suspect a conspiracy, not a single murderous act, but where lies the proof? Then the players are rewarded with the ultimate accolade — an appearance at court — and the canny bookholder senses the end to the drama is at hand…First published to great acclaim in 1988, The Queen’s Head anticipated the lure of bawdy, boisterous, yet elegant epics like Shakespeare in Love. Actor and playwright Marston has followed with, to date, ten more lusty, historically grounded, theatrically sound Bracewell mysteries that explore the face of England and reveal his deep love for its rich literary and dramatic heritage. The Roaring Boy was nominated for a 1996 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

    Her last play was a flop, her financial situation is getting desperate, and she's stuck with the worst actress in the world as the lead in her new comedy. But when she offers to organize the funeral of a murdered man it seems her troubles are only just beginning...

    As the only man aboard with any medical training, Duncan is ordered to assemble evidence to hold another prisoner accountable for the deaths - or face punishment that will mean his own death. His conclusions suggest that the wave of violence is somehow linked to the "savages" of the American wilderness. Duncan's suspicions that the prison company is to be sacrificed in the war seem to be confirmed when he learns that they are all indentured to Lord Ramsey's estate in the uncharted New York woodlands, a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. Following a strange trail of clues that seem half Iroquois and half Highland Scot, mesmerized by the Lord Ramsey's beautiful daughter, and frequently defying death in a dangerous wilderness populated by grizzled European settlers, mysterious scalping parties, and Indian sorcerers, Duncan McCallum, exiled chief of his near-extinct clan, finds the source of all evil at the site of an Indian massacre.

    But when the groom is murdered on the way to his wedding, the bride’s brother tasks his two best detectives—Gareth, a knight, and Gwen, the daughter of the court bard—with bringing the killer to justice. And once blame for the murder falls on Gareth himself, Gwen must continue her search for the truth alone, finding unlikely allies in foreign lands, and ultimately uncovering a conspiracy that will shake the political foundations of Wales.

    Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year, the date for her coronation having been chosen by her astrologer, Dr John Dee, at just 32 already famous throughout Europe as a mathematician and expert in the hidden arts. But neither Elizabeth nor Dee feel entirely secure. Both have known imprisonment for political reasons. The Queen is unpopular with both Roman Catholics and the new breed of puritanical protestant. Dee is regarded with suspicion in an era where the dividing line between science and sorcery is, at best, indistinct. And the assignment he's been given by the Queen's chief minister, Sir William Cecil, will blur it further: ride to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, bring back King Arthur's bones. The mission takes the mild, bookish Dee to the tangled roots of English magic and the Arthurian legacy so important to the Tudors. Into unexpected violence, spiritual darkness, the breathless stirring of first love...and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth. With him is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card...and possibly the Queen's secret lover. Dee is Elizabethan England's forgotten hero. A man for whom this world - even the rapidly-expanding world of the Renaissance - was never enough.

    But it is the newly arrived knight, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, who discerns the deceased was no victim of a tragic mishap; he was, in fact, murdered prior to the blaze. Simon would be well-served by accepting further assistance from this astute, though haunted and secretive stranger. For a second fatal burning indicates that some harsh evil has invaded this once-peaceful place, and its hunger has yet to be sated.

    The year is 1018 and the war is finally over, but the unified kingdom is far from peaceful.Halfdan’s mixed lineage—half Danish, half Saxon—has made him a pauper in the new kingdom. His father, his brother, and the land he should have inherited were all taken by the new king’s men. He lost everything to the war but his sense of humor. Once a proud nobleman, Halfdan now wanders the country aimlessly, powered only by his considerable charm and some petty theft. When he finds an unlikely ally in Winston, a former monk, he sees no reason not to accept his strange invitation to travel together to Oxford. Winston has been commissioned to paint a portrait of the king at the invitation of his new wife, and the protection of a clever man like Halfdan is well worth its price in wine and bread.But when the pair’s arrival in court coincides with news of a murder, the king has a brilliant idea: Why not enlist the newly arrived womanizing half-Dane and the Saxon intellectual to defuse a politically explosive situation? The pair represents both sides of the conflict and seem to have crime-solving skills to boot. In their search for the killer, Halfdan and Winston find seduction, adventure, and scandal in the wild early days of Cnut’s rule.

    This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic. In S.J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen. His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy. Like The Dante Club and The Alienist, this clever, sophisticated, exceptionally enjoyable novel is written with the unstoppable narrative propulsion and stylistic flair of the very best historical thrillers.

     In a city-state known for magnificence, where love affairs and conspiracies play out amidst brilliant painters, poets and musicians, the powerful and ambitious Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara, takes a new bride. Half of Europe is certain he murdered his first wife, Lucrezia, the luminous child of the Medici. But no one dares accuse him, and no one has proof-least of all his second duchess, the far less beautiful but delightfully clever Barbara of Austria. At first determined to ignore the rumors about her new husband, Barbara embraces the pleasures of the Ferrarese court. Yet wherever she turns she hears whispers of the first duchess's wayward life and mysterious death. Barbara asks questions—a dangerous mistake for a duchess of Ferrara. Suddenly, to save her own life, Barbara has no choice but to risk the duke's terrifying displeasure and discover the truth of Lucrezia's death—or she will share her fate.