Tudor Fiction

Orphaned as a child and raised by her uncle, Rose Sutton has spent the last five years helping him with her cousins and the parish while eagerly awaiting her sweetheart's return from the army. However, when it becomes clear her beau is not coming back, and her uncle decides to marry the meddlesome village busybody, Rose is desperate to leave.

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.

After eight months as a maid of court, Catherine Howard has become Queen. Separated from past friends and surrounded by people who resent her rise to the throne, the sole close companion she has left is Jane Boleyn, the infamous Lady Rochford. And this is not the only strain upon Catherine. People from her past come calling, the threat that the King may find out she is not the pure, innocent maiden he thinks she is puts her in peril. Catherine must imitate the Queens of the past in order to survive.

1399: England’s crown is under threat. King Richard II holds on to his power by an ever-weakening thread, with exiled Henry of Lancaster back to reclaim his place on the throne. For Elizabeth Mortimer, there is only one rightful King - her eight-year-old nephew, Edmund. Only he can guarantee her fortunes and protect her family’s rule over the precious northern lands bordering Scotland.

1553: deeply divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary's mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn't. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.

Ten-year-old Bess is only good at one thing—singing, which has no place in her family's bleak existence. When her father sells her to the king of England, she balances the loss of all she's known against a world of music and plenty, and builds a new life as a royal minstrel, earning the nickname "the king's songbird." Bess comes of age in the dangerous Tudor court, where the stakes are always high, and where politics, heartbreak, and disease threaten everyone from the king to the lowliest musician.

Upon the death of her father, Henry VIII, Queen Mary assumes the throne after a long exile. Her first order of business is to wed the devout Prince Philip of Spain, creating a powerful alliance that will transform Mary's fanatical dream of ridding England of Protestantism into terrifying reality.

Finally, fortune appears to have smiled on the Fitzwarren brothers. Richard and Jack are back in England, and Richard's loyalty to Elizabeth looks like it is about to finally be repaid. Jack is afforded an opportunity to meet with his father on equal terms. Will all go well?

Jaime Macpherson learned the meaning of betrayal on the Isle of Skye when her beloved Malcolm MacLeod wed another woman to save his inheritance. Her dreams of happiness crushed, she sought refuge in the elegant palace of the Duke of Norfolk. There Jaime would find Malcolm again, a prisoner in the castle dungeon. In the icy darkness, she learns how to love again. But with England and Scotland at war, her bold scheme to free Malcolm would imperil her own life.

1814 Sydney Town. When Mary Greenway, freshly arrived from the old country, steps into the maelstrom of Sydney Port with three children at her skirts, she has high hopes of a new beginning, despite having little money and a husband in irons. After all, the sudden death of her sadistic first husband has mean freedom from her gilded cage and Francis Greenway is an architect of some promise, under the protection of Admiral Phillip himself.

Time slips. Doomsday scenarios. Killer butterflies. C. J. Tudor's novels are widely acclaimed for their dark, twisty suspense plots, but with A Sliver of Darkness, she pulls us even further into her dizzying imagination. Riveting, macabre, and explosively original, A Sliver of Darkness is C. J. Tudor at her most wicked and uninhibited.

England, 1546: King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle; whoever wins will control the government of Henry's successor, eight-year-old Prince Edward. As heretics are hunted across London, and the radical Protestant Anne Askew is burned at the stake, the Catholic party focus their attack on Henry's sixth wife, Matthew Shardlake's old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr.

Battle and burial are built into the history of Lansdown Hill, so it is no great shock when part of a skeleton is unearthed there. But Peter Diamond, Bath's Head of CID, can't ignore the fresh corpse found close to the folly known as Beckford's Tower. The hill becomes the setting for one of the most puzzling cases he has investigated, involving golf, horseracing, Civil War re-enactment and the Cyrillic alphabet.

Amidst the frost-kissed halls of a medieval castle, where Yuletide cheer illuminates the shadows of the past, a tale of resilience, danger, and love unfolds. Thomas Greyville, a seasoned ex-spy for the crown and newly appointed Earl Graemes, returns to his ancestral home with a heavy heart. Tasked with restoring his family's estate, Thomas is confronted with dire news upon his arrival: the castle's coffers have been emptied, leaving the estate destitute. Determined to uncover the thief and restore his family's honor, Thomas finds an unexpected ally in Sybil, the widow of his late cousin Hugh.

In 1561, with Elizabeth I on the throne and Catholic plots brewing, a young German prince arrives in England claiming to be the rightful heir–the son of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Armed with jewels, letters, and Tudor looks, his claim threatens to upend the dynasty. But as poison spreads and secrets unravel, astrologer John Dee and his companion Margaretta must uncover the truth behind the prince’s origins.

With the death of her aunt, the narrator is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands, these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and repressions of the last century. In dialogue with writers like Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, and Osip Mandelstam, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a poetic voice.

When Thomas Berrington finds the bones of a human hand in his room at Ludlow Castle, he knows he must confront whoever left them. But when Thomas tracks the man down, his throat has been cut, and Thomas believes the killer is an old adversary.

A mysterious relic. Bones that do not belong. A Church in chaos. Settling into life near Ludlow, Thomas Berrington wants only to move the bones of his ancestors to land he owns. But while excavating them, Thomas and his children make a shocking discovery. Someone has already opened the graves and added the bodies of two children. Seeking to make sense of the extra bones Thomas begins to investigate, only to be told to stop by the local coroner. When more bodies are discovered Thomas ignores orders and carries on. Only to come up against the might of the Catholic church.

Though Eleanor is not wealthy, the saffron spice she grows for her new husband is more valuable than gold. But as his reputation in Henry’s court soars, Eleanor soon understands that she has entered into a dangerous game. The king’s affections do not last forever, and she must do anything to protect her family.

As she is seventh in line to the throne, sixteen-year-old Lady Margaret Clifford knows her marriage should be an important one. Which is why she is shocked to learn her father has agreed to entertain a proposal from a mere knight. Sir Andrew Dudley is a court favorite and joins the ranks of the Duke of Northumberland's family who are attempting to secure politically advantageous marriages. With the boy-king Edward VI failing to secure a marriage of his own and produce an heir, it is clear the Dudleys are plotting a path to the throne.