Eldest daughter of the royal House of York, Elizabeth dreams of a crown to call her own. But when her beloved father, King Edward, dies suddenly, her destiny is rewritten. Her family's enemies close in. Two young princes are murdered in the Tower. Then her uncle seizes power—and vows to make Elizabeth his queen. But another claimant seeks the throne, the upstart son of the rival royal House of Lancaster. Marriage to this Henry Tudor would unite the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster—and change everything.

When William X dies, the duchy of Aquitaine is left to his 15-year-old daughter, Eleanor. But such a position for an unmarried woman puts the whole kingdom at risk. So on his deathbed William made a will that would ensure his daughter’s protection: he promised her hand in marriage to the future King of France. Eleanor grows into a romantic and beautiful queen, but she has inherited the will of a king, determined to rule Aquitaine using her husband’s power as King of France. Her

The young Princess Victoria, strictly confined within the boundaries of Kensington Palace, is being moulded for her awesome future as Queen of England. Surrounded by her dolls and closely guarded by her domineering mother and faithful governess, she slowly becomes aware of the bitter conflicts that surround her. The jealous and scheming Duke of Cumberland is a constant threat to her rightful accession …her mother’s sinister friend, Sir John Conroy, makes her uneasy … and the bickering between her mother and the king seems never-ending.

In a castle in the mountains outside Rome, Lucrezia Borgia is born into history's most notorious family. Her father, who is to become Pope Alexander VI, receives his first daughter warmly, and her brothers, Cesare and Giovanni, are devoted to her. As Lucrezia matures into a beautiful young woman, her brothers are ever more protective and become fierce rivals for her attention.

France eagerly awaits the day the young king, Louis XV, comes of age and breaks free from the rule of his ministers. The country hopes Louis will bring back glory and prosperity to France. However, he is too preoccupied with the thrills of hunting and gambling to notice the power struggle going on in his own court. Soon the king is introduced to the pleasures of mistresses, and a succession of lovers follows.

One of history's most complex and alluring women, Anne Boleyn was irresistible to kings and commoners alike. Daughter of an ambitious country lord, Anne was sent to France to marry well and raise the family's fortunes. She soon surpassed even their greatest expectations when King Henry VIII swore he would put aside his loyal queen to make Anne his wife.

William the Conqueror is destined to succeed his father as the Duke of Normandy but questions about his legitimacy mean he consistently faces challenges from potential usurpers in the Duchy to retain the title. He marries Matilda, the equally intelligent and ambitious daughter of the King of Flanders, and together they have many children. In 1066, he crosses the channel from Normandy to England and seizes the crown from King Harold, Edward the Confessor's popular successor.

The Tudor monarchs were constantly surrounded by an army of attendants, courtiers and ministers. Even in their most private moments, they were accompanied by a servant specifically appointed for the task. A groom of the stool would stand patiently by as Henry VIII performed his daily purges, and when Elizabeth I retired for the evening, one of her female servants would sleep at the end of her bed. These attendants knew the truth behind the glamorous exterior.

If you were one of King Henry VIII's six wives, who would you be? Would you be Anne Boleyn, who literally lost her head? Would you be the subject of rumor and scandal like Catherine Howard? Or would you get away and survive like Anna of Cleves? Meet them and Henry's other queens - each bound for divorce or death - in this epic and thrilling novel that reads like fantasy but really happened.

The best-selling revisionist biography of one of the great women of the 16th century. Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at 14 to the future Henri II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress, Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots, and like many of her children he died young).

Mary, Queen of Scots’ marriage to the Earl of Bothwell is notorious. Less known is Bothwell’s first wife, Jean Gordon, who extricated herself from their marriage and survived the intrigue of the queen’s court. Daughters of the North reframes this turbulent period in history by focusing on Jean, who became Countess of Sutherland, following her from her birth as the daughter of the ‘King of the North’ to her disastrous union with the notorious Earl of Bothwell—and her lasting legacy to the Earldom of Sutherland.

Jacquetta, daughter of the count of Luxembourg and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, was married to the great Englishman John, duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of 19, she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her household for love and then carved out a life for herself as Queen Margaret of Anjou's close friend and a Lancaster supporter - until the day that her daughter Elizabeth Woodville fell in love and married the rival king Edward IV.

Lady Jane Grey was born into the most dangerous of times. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother for whom she was a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour. Growing up with the future Queen Elizabeth and her reluctant nemesis, Mary, she soon learned the truth of the values imparted to her by Henry VIII's last Queen, Katherine Parr.

Robin Maxwell’s debut novel introduces Anne Boleyn and her daughter, Elizabeth: one was queen for a thousand days, the other for more than 40 years. Both were passionate, headstrong women, loved and hated by Henry VIII. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, her mother’s private diary is given to her by a mysterious lady. In reading it, the young ruler - herself embroiled in a dangerous love affair - discovers a great deal about her much maligned mother.

The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure, but as King Charles' niece, Anne is also a political pawn who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. Forced to overcome grief for her lost children, the political manoeuvrings of her sister and her own betrayal of her father, she becomes one of the most fascinating figures of English history.