Lady Grace's Revels

“One of Lady Grace’s guests describes the play he is writing as, ‘a thing completely new, a thing never seen before, at once comedy, tragedy, history, romance,’ and this captures the tongue-in-cheek approach of Lady Grace’s Revels. The ‘period’ language in which the disastrous events are narrated is extravagant and frequently very funny. An entertaining winner.”
—Ruth Downie, Acclaimed New York Times Bestseller List Author of Vita Brevis, the latest installment in the Medicus series of novels about a reluctant detective in ancient Roman Britain.

It is Michaelmas in rural Renaissance England, and Thomas Smith and William Philpott, scriveners, cannot believe their luck. They have been invited to revels at the manor house of Lady Grace Atwater, Countess of Burnham. There will be food, drink, dancing, and gracious company culled from a diverse assortment of county society. Thomas has even written a poem for the occasion. All goes well until a certain Sir John, a master swordsman out to better himself by whatever means, makes an entrance. Soon, all is not well, and a cascade of revelations lays open the decadent underside of the glamourous aristocratic life.