Medieval Historical Mystery

Wales, 1369. Owen Archer is travelling to Wales on a mission for the Duke of Lancaster, recruiting archers in anticipation of King Charles of France's invasion of England. Joining him are Brother Michaelo, Geoffrey Chaucer and his father-in-law, Sir Robert D'Arby, who is on pilgrimage to the shrine of St David. When the body of John de Reine, one of the Duke of Lancaster's men, is found at the gate of St David's, the bishop asks Owen to return the corpse to John's father, Sir John Lascelles.

National best-selling author Ariana Franklin resumes her Mistress of the Art of Death series with A Murderous Procession. In 1176, King Henry II’s daughter is set to marry the king of Sicily. But when several wedding guests are murdered during the procession, Adelia must uncover who is behind the killings and who is the killer’s real target.

Weak in battle, powerless at court, and absent in the bedroom: the English crown has rarely sat less easily than on the head of Edward II. Inheriting the Plantagenet throne in a powerful position, Edward needs a wife to continue the dynasty - but the beautiful, charming Isabella fails to stir his heart like his close friend Piers Gaveston. Slighted and ignored, Isabella takes a new lover: the ambitious nobleman Roger Mortimer. Seduced by Mortimer's treachery, Isabella plots with him to murder her husband and take the throne.

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford. A local lord asks him to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cesspit. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes.

Master Hugh is making his way towards Oxford when he discovers the young Benedictine - a fresh body, barefoot - not half a mile from the nearby abbey. The abbey’s novice master confirms the boy’s identity: John, one of three novices. But he had gone missing four days previously, and his corpse is fresh. There has been plague in the area, but this was not the cause of death: The lad has been stabbed in the back. To Hugh’s sinking heart, the abbot has a commission for him....

Master Hugh, Kate, and their children attend the Midsummer’s Eve fire. Early next morning, Hugh hears the passing bell ring from the Church of St. Beornwald and moments later is summoned. Tenants collecting the ashes to spread upon their fields have found burned bones. Master Hugh learns of several men of Bampton and nearby villages who have gone missing recently. Most are soon found, some alive, some dead. Master Hugh eventually learns that the bones are those of a bailiff from a nearby manor. Someone has slain him and placed his body in the fire to destroy evidence of murder.

When Bampton’s coroner, Hubert Shillside, does not return from a trip to Oxford, Master Hugh de Singleton is called. Concerned for his old friend, Hugh takes to the road to investigate. Travel is safer than in times hence but, out of sight of prying eyes, it is still unwise to travel alone. Hugh finds a body, stabbed and left to rot, but it is not the body he was expecting to find. Indeed, reports of pillage, attacks, and chaos on the roads out of Oxford suddenly seem rampant. Hugh must ascertain whether the incidents are random, or whether something darker is afoot.

London. July, 1399. As rumors spread that his ambitious cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, has returned from exile in France, King Richard's grip on the English throne grows ever more precarious. Meanwhile, the body of a young woman is discovered at Dowgate sluice. When it's established that the dead woman was a novice from nearby Barking Abbey, the coroner calls in his friend, Brother Chandler, to investigate. Who would cut the throat of a young nun and throw her remains in the river? And what was she doing outside the confines of the priory in the first place?

Ireland. AD 672. The Feast of Beltaine is approaching, and the seven senior princes of the kingdom of Muman are gathering at Cashel to discuss King Colgú's policies. Just days before the council meets, Brother Conchobhar, the keeper of the sacred sword, is found murdered. Sister Fidelma and her brother, Colgú, fear that the killer had been trying to steal the sword that symbolises the king's authority to rule.

In the summer of 1143, William of Lythwood arrives at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, but it is not a joyous occasion—he's come back from his pilgrimage in a coffin. William's body is accompanied by his young attendant Elave, whose mission is to secure a burial place for his master on the abbey grounds. An already difficult task is complicated when Elave drunkenly expresses his heretical opinions, and capital charges are filed. When a violent death follows, Sheriff Hugh Beringar taps his friend Brother Cadfael for help.

1236. Beautiful Ailenor of Provence, cultured and intelligent, is only 13 when she marries Henry III. Aware of the desperate importance of providing heirs to secure the throne from those who would snatch it away, she is ruthless in her dealings with Henry's barons. As conflict escalates between them, Ailenor's shrewd and clever Savoyard uncles come to support her, but her growing political power is threatened when Henry's half-siblings also arrive at court. Henry and Ailenor become embroiled in an unpopular war to protect Gascony, the last English territory on the continent.

Master Hugh is asked to provide a sleeping potion for Sir Henry Burley, a friend and guest of Lord Gilbert who has outstayed his welcome at Bampton Castle. The next morning after Master Hugh provides the potion, Sir Henry is found dead, eyes open, in his bed. Master Hugh, the target of the wife’s wrath, is asked by Lord Gilbert to determine the cause of death....

June 1381. The rebel armies are massed outside London, determined to overturn both crown and church. Brother Athelstan, meanwhile, has been summoned to the monastery at Blackfriars, tasked with solving the murder of his fellow priest, Brother Alberic. Athelstan would rather be protecting his parishioners at St Erconwald's. Instead, he finds himself investigating a royal murder whilst the rebel leaders plot the present king's destruction. What does the fate of the King's great-grandfather, Edward II, have to do with the murder of Brother Alberic more than 50 years later?

Eighteen years old and four times a widow? This is the Penwyth Curse. Become acquainted with two sets of heroes and heroines as their stories overlap. History, romantic suspense, magic, and mayhem ensue.

A new home under threat... Family and friends in mortal danger... Will Richard be able to save everyone? Can Richard survive being plunged into the cut-throat world of medieval campaigning, complete with sieges, pitched battles and more. Book Two in The Legend of Richard Keynes series follows Richard as he struggles to assert authority over his new land, as well as his new wife. He will have to battle against bad omens, prejudice and the consequences of his actions.

When a corpse turns up at his favorite tavern, Crispin Guest-disgraced knight turned detective - begins an inquiry, but the dead man turns out to be a Templar knight, an order thought to be extinct for 75 years, charged with protecting a certain religious relic which is now missing. Before he can begin to investigate, Crispin is abducted by shadowy men who are said to be minions of the French anti-pope.

Will Britain take him in... or mark him as its enemy? Faustus Valerianus is the son of a Roman father and a British mother, a captive sold among the spoils after Claudius’ invasion. When both parents die within a month of each other, he sells the family farm and enlists, joining legendary general Agricola’s campaign to conquer the entirety of the British Isles. But Faustus will have to contend with more than ferocious British warriors and whip-cracking elements. For the bonds of blood can weigh heavy on one’s soul. The call of his mother’s true people.

In 1360 Edward III issues a call to arms, as sporadic attacks by the French threaten to turn into a full-blown invasion. In Cambridge, fear of the enemy is magnified by the belief that foreign agents are lurking in the area. Tension runs ever higher as rumours and ignorance fan the flames of suspicion amid preparations for war. And then the first murder occurs - of a French scholar living in the town.

Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal, hastens to the Dominican Priory at Blackfriars where Gaveston's corpse awaits burial. But, on arrival, Corbett discovers that a series of macabre murders has turned the priory into a mansion of death, and a killer is roaming free. Meanwhile, rumours spread that the pirate ships of the Black Banner Fleet are intent on entering the River Thames and, if the Sea Beggars succeed in their mission, they will weaken the king's power throughout the city.

Baldwin Furnshill and Bailiff Simon Puttock have been granted leave to go on pilgrimage. Together they travel across Europe to Portugal, but danger seems to follow them, as they are among the first on the scene when a beautiful young girl is found brutally raped and murdered on the hillside of Santiago de Compostela. Baldwin and Simon lend their investigative skills to the ensuing enquiry headed by the local pesquisidore, Munio.