From the pen of legendary historical novelist Jean Plaidy comes an unforgettable true story of royalty, passion, and innocence lost. Born into an impoverished branch of the noble Howard family, young Katherine is plucked from her home to live with her grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk. The innocent girl quickly learns that her grandmother's puritanism is not shared by Katherine's free-spirited cousins, with whom she lives. Beautiful and impressionable, Katherine becomes involved in two ill-fated love affairs before her sixteenth birthday. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, she leaves her grandmother's home to become a lady-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII. The royal palaces are exciting to a young girl from the country, and Katherine ?nds that her duties there allow her to be near her handsome cousin, Thomas Culpepper, whom she has loved since childhood. But when Katherine catches the eye of the aging and unhappily married king, she is forced to abandon her...

When Henry VI becomes king, it is soon clear that he would be better suited to a quiet life than to ruling the country. Richard, Duke of York, is convinced that he would make a better king and has more right to the crown, and he will stop at nothing to claim it. But Margaret of Anjou, Henry's new French wife, is a formidable woman who is just as determined to keep Henry on the throne. Most powerful of all is the Earl of Warwick, the kingmaker, and with his support of Richard of York the War of the Roses begins. When Henry VI lapses into madness and eventually meets his mysterious end in the Wakefield Tower, Margaret directs all of her ambition towards her young son, Passionate and impulsive she begins scheming for him, and in doing so dashes headlong into disaster ...

Jean Plaidy's hugely popular Plantagenet series draws to a dramatic close with this final volume. Reckoned by those about him to be the most handsome man in the country, Edward the fourth has risen to the throne with the help of Warwick, the kingmaker. But even Warwick's trusted advice cannot convince the King to ignore his passion for the beautiful widow, Elizabeth Woodville - and when she refuses to become his mistress the two are married. Beloved of the people, Edward proves himself to be a strong king, but his love of luxurious living soon begins to impact on his royal duties. Despite his mistresses, Elizabeth is loyal to the illustrious king, providing him with many children, among them Edward the fifth and Richard Duke of York. But Edward lived recklessly and on his death an incident from his past comes to light that will change the course of history ...

This is the third and final book in The Norman Trilogy and tells the story of the last days of the reign of Henry I. His son and wife are dead, and Henry hastily remarries a woman more than thirty years his junior in the hope of producing a male heir and securing the succession. If he fails, the throne will pass to Matilda, and Henry fears that his nobles will not willingly serve a woman. But after his death this feckless daughter becomes the focus of a line of would-be kings and soon the country is plunged into a bitter civil war that only a child can undo. 'Jean Plaidy, by the skilful blending of superb storytelling and meticulous attention to authenticity of detail and depth of characterisation has become one of the country's most widely read novelists.' Sunday Times 'Full-blooded, dramatic, exciting.' Observer ...

The third of Jean Plaidy's Tudor novels, continuing the story of Katherine of Aragon's failing marriage to the adulterous Henry VIII ... Whilst the young King Henry VIII basks in the pageants and games of his glittering court, his doting queen's health and fortunes fade. Henry's affection for his older wife soon strays, and the neglected Katherine decides to use her power as Queen to dangerous foreign advantage. Overseas battles play on Henry's volatile temper, and his defeat in France has changed the good-natured boy Katherine loved into an infamously callous ruler. With no legitimate heir yet born, Katherine once again begins to fear for her future...

The first half of the thirteenth century is dominated by two women, as proud and ambitious as they were beautiful, yet different in all other qualities.Isabella, flamboyant and passionate, a medieval Helen of Troy - wife to King John and mother to Henry III... Blanche of Castile, serene and virtuous Queen of France, wife of Louis VIII and mother of Louis IX... The two women hated each other on sight. Isabella would stop at nothing, not even murder, in her passion to destroy the French Queen...

This is a story set against a late eighteenth and early nineteenth centurybackground, telling how the evils of their time affected the lives of threegenerations of women. Kitty Kennedy loses her lover before Carolan is born;Katharine, Carolan's child, chooses what must inevitably be a life ofdanger; but it is Carolan, sensitive and proud, bold and reckless, who mustsuffer most deeply and who is the central figure around whom events revolve.Her adventures in the East End, in Newgate Jail and in the foul women'squarters on the prison ship transporting her to Australia are told withterrible clarity and a powerful imagination. The profligacy, perversion,vice and cruelty of that age are forcefully recreated. Having survived thejourney and been taken to the house of Materman of Sydney, Carolan findsthat her experiences have changed her from an innocent girl to a ruthlesswoman, determined to establish herself in the Masterman household, and hermethod of doing so is such as will haunt her for the rest of her life. Themain characters in this unusual novel are not only vivid but convincing.There is the gay and amorous Marcus, vain Kitty, bawdy Margery and sweetKatharine; there is Masterman who, for love of Carolan, forgets he isambitious and a Puritan; the pious Esther, and Carolan herself--these andmany others, living in a world of crime and horror, dirt and luxury, crueltyand indifference are all reaching out hopefully to better times beyond thesymbolic Blue Mountains.