The year is 1590, and Queen Elizabeth's Spanish Armada victory has done nothing to quell her brutal persecution of the English Catholics. Katharine de L'Isle is living at Lufanwal Hall, the manor of her uncle, Sir Edward. Taught by her cherished uncle to read when a child, Katharine is now a thirty-one-year-old widow. She has resigned herself to a life of reading and keeping company with her cousins and their children. But all that changes when the...

Elizabeth's rival for the love of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and mother to the Earl of Essex, the mercurial nobleman who challenged Elizabeth's throne, Lettice Knollys had been intertwined with Elizabeth since childhood. They are both women of fierce intellect and desire: one trying to protect her country, and throne, the other trying to regain power and position for her family and each vying to convince the reader of her own private vision...

"Anne Boleyn may be best known for losing her head, but as Tudor expert Tracy Borman reveals in a book that recasts British history, her greatest legacy lies in the path-breaking reign of her daughter, Elizabeth. Much of the fascination with Britain's legendary Tudors centers around the dramas surrounding Henry VIII and his six wives and Elizabeth I's rumored liaisons. Yet the most fascinating relationship in that historic era may well be that between...