Tag: stuart history

The Queen’s Children is Published Today

Congratulations to Raymond Wemmlinger, whose gripping Stuart-era novel, The Queen’s Children, is published today!

England, 1605

Anne of Denmark, Queen of England, gives birth to her daughter Mary, her first child since coming to England in 1603 when her husband James succeeded to the English throne.

Although they would have preferred a son, both parents are pleased the child is healthy, and their courtiers are thrilled with the birth of the first royal child on English soil in nearly seventy years.

The Scottish family has been welcomed by the English and the reign has started out well, despite continuing tension between the Catholics and the Protestants.

Although Anne has enjoyed the opportunities in England for promoting her artistic interests, she feels inferior to James, and finds satisfaction in rearing her four children, in particular her eldest son Henry.

Anne is determined to bring about an engagement for him with the Spanish infanta. But with anti-Catholic sentiment on the rise, it is not necessarily the wisest match.

Anne becomes pregnant again, but almost immediately afterward the news is clouded by the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, aimed at the near total destruction of the royal family.

The troubling psychological impact on James is enormous, and Anne worries for the stability of their family.

Can she secure a suitable match for Henry? Will her children survive to adulthood?

Or could the Stuart reign already be doomed to fail…?

The Jane Seymour Conspiracy is Published Today

Congratulations to Alexandra Walsh, whose page-turning historical saga, The Jane Seymour Conspiracy, is published today!

The Jane Seymour Conspiracy is the fourth book in the Marquess House series, dual timeline conspiracy thrillers with an ingenious twist on a well-known period of Tudor and Stuart history.

London, 1527

Nineteen-year-old Jane Seymour arrives at court to take her place with Queen Katherine of Aragon. Discovering a court already beginning to divide into factions between Katherine and Jane’s second cousin, Anne Boleyn, Jane finds herself caught between the old world and the new. Determined to have a son, the king appears to be prepared to take whatever steps he deems necessary to secure the Tudor dynasty.

When King Henry VIII finally succeeds in his pursuit of Anne, Jane witnesses the slow unravelling of his interest in the new queen as she, too, fails in her task to deliver a son. Having watched both Katherine and Anne fall from grace, Jane has no ambition for the throne, but when the king begins seeking her out, Jane realises the decision may be out of her hands…

Pembrokeshire, 2020

When a set of papers called The Pentagram Manuscript makes its way to Perdita and Piper at Marquess House, they find they have a new mystery to unravel. The manuscript is the tale of five women on a quest to find true love, written while Anne Boleyn was queen. As Perdita begins to unravel the text, she discovers a code that leads to a whole new outlook on Henry’s relationship with Jane Seymour.

But before they have a chance to reveal all, the twins find themselves under threat from a different source. Their second cousin, Xavier Connors, is determined to wrest Marquess House from them. As Marquess House must be passed down through the female line, and Perdita and Piper do not have children, Xavier sees his twin daughter as being next in line. And when Piper is nearly driven off the road, they realise he will stop at nothing to get what he wants…

What really happened to Henry VIII’s Tudor queens? Why was history rewritten?

Will Piper and Perdita be able to unravel all of the secrets before it’s too late…?

The Lying Dutchman is Out Now

Congratulations to Graham Brack, whose fabulous historical mystery, The Lying Dutchman, is published today!

The Lying Dutchman is the sixth book in the Master Mercurius series: atmospheric crime thrillers set in seventeenth-century Europe.

1685, The Netherlands

Master Mercurius has once again been summoned to The Hague by Stadhouder William of Orange. And a letter from William is never good news.

King Charles II of England has died and William, with his wife Mary, is now next in line to the throne once the current king, James II dies.

But Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, has put a spanner in the works.

Monmouth is being encouraged to stage a rebellion and take the English throne. William needs to stop him so as not to jeopardise his own claim, but he also wants to keep Monmouth as an ally.

So, Mercurius is ordered to travel once again to England, and this time on an even more dangerous mission. He must plant a letter containing Monmouth’s invasion plans at court so that James summons an army in response and scares Monmouth off.

The only problem is that if Mercurius is caught and tried for espionage, the punishment is certain death…