Queen's Bounty
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
An aide to the Tudor queen faces treachery—and accusations of witchcraft—in this series of “intelligent, historically accurate Elizabethan-era whodunits” (Booklist).
Ursula Blanchard is rudely shaken on receipt of a threatening letter from the exiled Anne Percy, Countess of Northumberland, whose treasonous plot against Elizabeth I Ursula helped foil a few months previously.
Ursula dismisses the countess’s letter as idle threats, but then a series of strange events rocks Ursula’s household—and Ursula herself is accused of witchcraft. Could Anne Percy really be orchestrating a plot against Ursula from her exile in the Netherlands? And, if so, how can Ursula prove it before she is hanged as a witch?
“Ursula is the essence of iron cloaked in velvet—a heroine to reckon with.” —Kirkus Reviews
“[A] sixteenth-century mystery series as complicated and charming as an Elizabethan knot garden.” —The Tampa Tribune
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Buckley's well-paced 10th Tudor mystery featuring Ursula Blanchard (after Queen Without a Crown) finds Ursula, former lady-in-waiting and half-sister to Elizabeth I, happily married to her third husband, Hugh Stannard, and preparing for her daughter's wedding. Then she receives an unsettling letter from Anne Percy, the countess of Northumberland, a Mary Stuart supporter now living in exile in the Netherlands. Anne accuses Ursula and her manservant, Brockley, of destroying "both my hopes and my dignity," and vows vengeance. Hugh and Brockley, whom Anne suggests is Ursula's lover, try to reassure Ursula that Anne can do her no harm, but soon a plague of troubles descends on their Surrey household. Accidental mishaps prove to be the work of a devious villain. When Ursula is accused of witchcraft, she must expose this villain to save herself from the hangman's noose. Fans of Elizabethan historicals will be richly rewarded.