Tudor Fiction

Two young girls plot a murder by witchcraft. Soon afterwards, a government clerk dies painfully in mysterious circumstances. His colleague James Marwood is asked to investigate—but the task brings unexpected dangers. Meanwhile, architect Cat Hakesby is working for a merchant who lives on Slaughter Street, where the air smells of blood and a captive Barbary lion prowls the stables. Then a prestigious new commission arrives. Cat must design a Poultry House for the woman that the king loves most in all the world.

Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church, and the country is waking up to savage new laws. Under the order of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent to investigate the monasteries. At the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's commissioner, Robin Singleton, has been found dead. And Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of reform, has been sent by Cromwell into an atmosphere of treachery and death to investigate.

In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen. But one woman hears the tidings with utter dread. Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, knows that the peal of bells she hears will summon her husband once more to power, intrigue, and a passionate love affair with the young queen.

Heather McCollum presents Book 3 in the Brothers of Wolf Isle series.

Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.

Mairi Maclean is kidnapped on her wedding day by the enemy of her dead husband. Taken north to the water-surrounded Kisimul Castle, she is held captive in the name of retribution. But The Wolf of Kisimul Castle soon learns Mairi is not a docile pawn in this game of war between neighboring Scots. Nor will she be frightened into walking down the aisle to wed the fierce Highland chief. Alec MacNeil is set on revenge. When he finds his enemy dead, he takes his wife to replace the one that was murdered. An eye for an eye. A bride for a bride. But Mairi is more tiger than kitten.

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of 20 reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three decades tells the story of what happened next.

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857.

Maxim: Proud and passionate, the Marquess of Bradbury swore vengeance on those who had stolen his title and lands. . .and branded him a traitor to the Crown. Elise: Beautiful and spirited, she found herself the innocent prisoner of the marquess, her family's most hated foe. They were bitter enemies caught in a dangerous tide that swept through Elizabeth's England—And thus began a battle of wit and will between two people so perfectly matched that they could only fall in love.

Browsing an antiques shop in Wiltshire, Alison Bannister stumbles across a delicate old portrait - identified as the doomed Tudor queen Anne Boleyn. Except Alison knows better. The subject is Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr, who was taken to Wolf Hall in 1557 and presumed dead after going missing as a child. And Alison knows this because she, too, lived at Wolf Hall and knew Mary...more than 400 years ago.

Attractive, wealthy, and influential, Katherine Willoughby is one of the most unusual ladies of the Tudor court. A favourite of King Henry VIII, Katherine knows all his six wives, his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and his son Edward, as well as being related by marriage to Lady Jane Grey. She marries Tudor knight, Sir Charles Brandon, and becomes Duchess of Suffolk at the age of 14. Her Spanish mother, Maria de Salinas, is Queen Catherine of Aragon’s lady in waiting, so it is a challenging time for them all when King Henry marries the enigmatic Anne Boleyn.

In A Fatal Winter, Max Tudor - Anglican priest, former MI5 agent, and village heartthrob - investigates two deaths at Chedrow Castle. But his growing attraction to Awena Owen complicates his case, as does the recent arrival at Chedrow Castle of a raucous group of long-lost, greedy relatives, any one of whom has a motive for murder. With a cozy setting, intricate puzzles, and a handsome (non-celibate) priest doing the sleuthing, the books in this series are destined to become instant classics in the mystery world.

She was the mother of Henry VIII and wife of Henry VII, but who was Elizabeth of York? Raised as the precious eldest child of Edward IV, Elizabeth had every reason to expect a bright future until Edward died, and her life fell apart. When Elizabeth's uncle became Richard III, she was forced to choose sides. Should she trust her father's brother and most loyal supporter or honor the betrothal that her mother has made for her to her family's enemy, Henry Tudor? The choice was made for her on the field at Bosworth.

Valentina had been admired, married, widowed, yet had never known love.... Not even at the illustrious court of Queen Elizabeth, where her innocent, violet-eyed beauty fired the hearts of England's most gallant gentry, especially the roguish earl of Kempe and the irrepressible Lord Padraic Burke. But her innocence shattered when a deathbed confession revealed that her true father might not have been Lord Bliss, but the lustful Sultan Murad of Istanbul. Determined to find the truth, Valentina sets sail for the East, a voyage of unsurpassed danger...and sensual discovery.

An airport killer targeting pilots expands his scope. Alex Cross Must Die. “Drop whatever you’re doing, Detective Cross, and head to Reagan Airport,” DC Metro Police dispatch says. “A jet just crashed and exploded on the runway. The chief and the FBI want you and John Sampson there pronto.”

Princess Yasaman has been blessed with rapturous beauty, fierce intelligence, and an innocent sensuality that captivates two formidable men—her scheming half-brother, Salim, and her loving husband, Prince Jamal. But her days of bliss and nights of steamy passion are shattered when Jamal is murdered, and Yasaman flees to England and the court of James I. Calling herself Jasmine, she is reunited with her beautiful mother, Velvet, and her grandmother, the legendary Skye O'Malley de Marisco.

In the year 1553, King Edward VI has turned sixteen. His minority has come to an end. He is ready to rule England as the next Tudor King and Head of the Church of England. However, his Catholic sister Lady Mary poses a threat to his dream of a ruling over a united godly nation.

Adored by her parents and pampered by the court, the infant Princess Mary’s life changes suddenly and drastically when her father’s eye is taken by the enigmatic Anne Boleyn. Mary stands firm against her father’s determination to destroy both her mother’s reputation and the Catholic church. It is a battle that will last throughout both her father’s and her brother’s reign, until she is almost broken by persecution.

A precise killer, he always moves under the cover of darkness, flawlessly triggering no alarms, leaving no physical evidence. Cross and Sampson aren’t the only ones investigating. Also in on this most intriguing case is the world’s bestselling true-crime author, who sees patterns everyone else misses. The writer, Thomas Tull, calls the Family Man murders the perfect crime story. He believes the killer may never be caught. Cross knows there is no perfect crime. And he’s going to hunt down the Family Man no matter what it takes.

At Elizabeth's command, she marries the Duc de Beaumont de Jaspre, whose Mediterranean principality is vital to England. Her new world, though tortuously cruel at first, is transformed by Skye's hot-blooded desires - only to be shaken with the news that her beloved former husband may be alive in Algiers. Her daring flight into danger leads her ultimately to her heart's true destiny - as bold and sensual as Skye herself.