****A book of passion, of sixteenth-century England, of greed and
political ambition unto death. Historians and novelists have written
extensively about the various aspects of Queen Elizabeth I's long, rich,
and tumultuous life. No one has ever given us a fully realized portrait
of the greatest English monarch as a young girl. Concluding her
brilliant Tudor trilogy, Robin Maxwell enters this new territory by
introducing Elizabeth as a romantic and vulnerable teenager dangerously
awakening to sexuality with the wrong man. Elizabeth, daughter of Henry
VIII and Anne Boleyn, was banished from the court at the age of two when
her father sent Anne Boleyn to her death. Seven years later, when the
gracious and immensely wealthy Catherine Parr became Henry's sixth wife,
she softened the King's heart and Elizabeth was readmitted to the court.
For the next four years the young princess enjoyed a warm friendship
with Catherine and a new sense of belonging.
In 1547, Great Harry is dead, and Elizabeth's nine-year-old brother
Edward VI is king in name only. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, has
boldly named himself Lord Protector and effectively seized power.
Meanwhile the duke's equally ambitious brother Thomas, realizing he
cannot wrest control directly, has deployed his greatest talent--his
charm and sexual magnetism--to utmost effect by persuading Henry's widow
Catherine to marry him. His real goal, however, is the late king's
daughter: Elizabeth herself. And so the game begins, one with rules that
only reckless, amoral Thomas Seymour understands. Into this intrigue are
drawn both those who love Elizabeth and those who wish her ill. In order
to escape certain doom and achieve independence, Elizabeth must stand
alone.
