Queen of Ambition
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the author of To Ruin a Queen comes a “riveting social history in an exciting mystery setting” (Booklist, starred review) featuring Ursula Blanchard, lady-in-waiting and secret agent to Queen Elizabeth.
Ursula Blanchard, loyal lady of the Queen's Presence Chamber and gifted sleuth, is at home amid the glittering complexities of the royal court. Now, Ursula has a new part to play in the service of her Queen—a role that exposes her to hidden dangers in the famed university town of Cambridge.
Assigned as a harbinger for the Queen's upcoming Summer Progress to Cambridge, Ursula is placed in charge of not only Her Majesty's comfort, but also her safety. For Ursula, that means undertaking employment in a pie shop to investigate rumored political perils behind a swashbuckling student play conceived at the University to entertain the Queen.
Even in such a bastion of Protestant power and scholarly pursuits as Cambridge, protecting the Queen is not purely academic. When a handsome young student's all-too-conveniently timed death rouses her suspicions, Ursula applies her superior powers of observation to untangling a mystifying jumble of oddities, coincidences, secrets, and ciphers that surround her...and discovers ominous signs of treason.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ursula Blanchard, lady-in-waiting and espionage agent to Queen Elizabeth I, shows her usual flare in dealing with murder and intrigue in Buckley's fifth engrossing Elizabethan mystery (after 2000's To Ruin a Queen). In the early summer of 1564, Ursula is at Withysham, her country manor house, where she and her eight-year-old daughter are waiting for the plague to end in France so that they may join her husband at their home in the Loire Valley. Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth is preparing a Royal Progress to Cambridge University. Ordered to court earlier than expected, Ursula learns that the queen's Secretary of State, Sir William Cecil, is fearful about a student play to be presented to the queen just after she enters the town and greets the public. Ursula and her good friend, Rob Henderson, are sent ahead to investigate. Going undercover in her housekeeper's dress, Ursula takes a job at the pie shop frequented by Cambridge students and across the street from where the play is to be performed. A student death, complicated ciphers and a runaway wife make for a suspenseful story. As in previous novels in the series, the author expertly blends historical fact and fiction. Although the conclusion may not satisfy some readers and minor characters are merely names, the challenging plot and winning heroine will satisfy existing historical fans and should attract new ones. FYI:Fiona Buckley is the pseudonym of British author Valerie Anand.
