Tudor Fiction

Detective Alex Cross is hunting a killer who targets families around Washington, DC. But Cross isn't the only one investigating. A charismatic true-crime author has spotted patterns in the actions of 'The Family Man' that others have missed. It's up to Cross to determine whether the writer's theories are fact or fiction.

Madeleine Vernon’s dreams should be filled with elegant gowns and marriageable men. Instead, she dreams of avenging her brother’s death. But when she’s captured by the queen’s men, she’s forced to become a spy by her mysterious yet undeniably attractive captor.

1527: At seventeen, Thomasin Marwood is plunged into court society when a husband is found for her elder sister, Cecilia. But the mood at court is tense. It is split between the conservative Catholics, loyal to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and the fashionable Francophiles, enthralled by King Henry's mistress, Anne Boleyn. While her parents sympathize with the old queen and her faith, Thomasin cannot help but be drawn to the glamour and vitality Anne represents. And her head is soon turned by the tall, dark and handsome Rafe Danvers who seems equally entranced with her.

Tudor adventurer, courtier, explorer and poet, Sir Walter Raleigh has been called the last true Elizabethan. He didn’t dance or joust, didn’t come from a noble family, or marry into one. So how did an impoverished law student become a favourite of the queen, and Captain of the Guard? The story which began with the Tudor trilogy follows Walter Raleigh from his first days at the Elizabethan Court to the end of the Tudor dynasty.

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.

Young Queen Elizabeth I's path to the throne has been a perilous one, and already she faces a dangerous crisis. French troops have landed in Scotland to quell a rebel Protestant army, and Elizabeth fears once they are entrenched on the border, they will invade England. Isabel Thornleigh has returned to London from the New World with her Spanish husband, Carlos Valverde, and their young son. Ever the queen's loyal servant, Isabel is recruited to smuggle money to the Scottish rebels. Yet Elizabeth's trust only goes so far.

A woman's naked body is found floating in the weeds of a lake near Bath by an elderly woman walking her Siamese cats. No one comes forward to identify her, and no murder weapon is found, but sleuthing is Superintendent Peter Diamond's speciality. A genuine gumshoe, practising door stopping and deduction: he is the last detective. Struggling with office politics and a bizarre cast of suspects, Diamond strikes out on his own, even when Forensics think they have the culprit.

The woman haunted by the fate of her predecessor. Eleven days after the death of Anne Boleyn, Jane is dressing for her wedding to the King. She has witnessed at firsthand how courtly play can quickly turn to danger and knows she must bear a son...or face ruin. This new Queen must therefore step out from the shadows cast by Katherine and Anne - in doing so, can she expose a gentler side to the brutal King?

Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos...The king, Edward VI, is 11 years old. His uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, rules as Protector. Radical Protestants are conducting all-out war on the old religion, stirring discontent among the people. The Protector's prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure. Worst of all, the economy is in collapse, inflation rages, and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.

When multi-millionaire Jacki Turner is forced to take stock of her life, she sets her daughters a challenge - in order to inherit her vast fortune, each must fulfil a task that she believes will push them to become better versions of themselves. Rose, an exhausted mother of three, must write and publish a children's picture book. Exercise-hater Mel must run the Gold Coast marathon. Isla, the eldest, must figure out who she is beyond her wealth and status, while commitment-phobic Jess must stay in a relationship for longer than three months.

Fresh from the cultivated hothouse of Renaissance France, Anne draws attention at the English court. A nobleman, a poet and a king vie for her love. She has a spirit worthy of a crown - and a crown is what she seeks. It is a more powerful aphrodisiac than love. And so she embarks on her perilous course, which will plunge a kingdom into turmoil. Blood will flow on her account. Her only protection is the King's great love.

1568. Mary Queen of Scots, fleeing rebellion in her kingdom, is offered a safe haven by Elizabeth I with George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick. The arrival of an extravagent queen turns the household upside down, as it becomes clear that the visit is a house arrest. Queen Mary makes Bess’ hard-won house a centre for unrest and treason, and - perhaps worst of all - Mary Queen of Scots’ fabled beauty starts to work on the Tudor loyalist, Bess’ own husband, George.

The house was built in the Old Queen's time: built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home. It survived many eras, many reigns: it saw the passing of Cromwell and the Civil War. It became rich with an Indian Nabob and poor with a 20th century innkeeper. It saw wars, and lovers, and death. Children were born there, both heirs and bastards. It had ghosts and legends and a history that grew stranger with every generation.

A young boy from Shropshire named Will Somers has a special talent for entertaining. His gifts bring him all the way to the court of Henry VIII where he becomes a favoured servant and close companion of the king. In his role as the royal fool, he observes the life and times of Henry and his court. He witnesses the successive rise and fall of his queens, nobles and ministers. He is the only one whom Henry trusts with his true thoughts. “The Tudor Fool” tells the story of the unlikely relationship between a tyrannical king and his humble jester.

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.

I fought. It was a losing battle. I ran. His relentlessness ensnared me. I'm a token. A trinket. A toy for Victor's amusement. He's seductive. A dangerous deviant. Although I can't stop the madness, staying is lethal.

Anxious to secure his own success at the glittering court of Henry VIII, heiress Tamsin Lodge’s ambitious guardian obtains her a position as maid of honor to young Princess Mary Tudor. Tamsin soon comes to love the neglected child, but in the Tudor court, not even a princess is secure. Mary’s father is besotted with the lovely Anne Boleyn, and the girl’s future has grown perilous. Plotting to be Mary’s eyes and ears, Tamsin joins Anne’s service, but the handsome silk worker who is her co-conspirator may be her undoing.

It’s time to put the guns down, Detective Cross. Even if you knew the way out of this place, we would catch you. A serial killer is taking out America’s finest legal minds, and Alex Cross is called to investigate their brutal murders. But during a dangerous mission to track down the killer, his wife, Bree, and best friend, John Sampson, go missing.

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, is one of the most intriguing men of the Elizabethan period. Tall and handsome, he soon becomes a ‘favorite’ at court, so close to the queen many wonder if they are lovers. The truth is far more complex, as each has what the other yearns for. Robert Devereux longs for recognition, wealth and influence. His flamboyant naïveté amuses the ageing Queen Elizabeth, like the son she never had, and his vitality makes her feel young.

The Tudors are England's most notorious royal family. But, as Leanda de Lisle's gripping new history reveals, they are a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew. The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family's obscure Welsh origins and the ordinary man known as Owen Tudor who would fall (literally) into a queen's lap - and later her bed.