Tracy Borman

Anne Boleyn is a subject of enduring fascination. For the most part, she is considered in the context of her relationship with Tudor England's much-married monarch. Dramatic though this story is, of even greater interest - and significance - is the relationship between Anne and her daughter, the future Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth was less than three years old when her mother was executed. Given that she could have held precious few memories of Anne, it is often assumed that her mother exerted little influence over her. But this is both inaccurate and misleading.

Piecing together evidence from original documents and artefacts, this book tells the story of Anne Boleyn's relationship with, and influence over her daughter Elizabeth. In so doing, it sheds new light on two of the most famous and influential women in history.

Frances Gorges has already survived the accusation of witchcraft. But if her torturers at the court of King James knew of her love for Tom Wintour, one of the executed members of the gunpowder plot, it would mean certain death.

Pregnant with Tom's child, hiding under the reluctant protection of her spiteful and ambitious brother, Frances lives in fear - until she is offered the chance to make a respectable - if loveless - marriage and return to court.

She will not be expected to sleep with her husband. The only price she must pay for safety is to give up the cause for which her lover died.

But old loyalties are hard to deny, and soon Frances is drawn back into the snake-pit scheming of the factions trying to take the throne.

Book 2 in the Frances Gorges series.

Frances Gorges has happiness within her grasp. King James would rather be hunting stags with her beloved husband Thomas than chasing witches, which means her medical skills and herbal knowledge no longer hang over her like a death sentence.

But a new arrival at court brings intrigue, jealousy and danger. George Villiers is a young man with the face of an angel and the cunning heart of a devil.

Soon James is besotted by this charismatic new lover. Thomas's life is made a misery and Frances is back under suspicion as Villiers plots to marry her friend Katherine Manners and seize her fortune.

Appalled at the courtier's greed and the King's weakness, Frances finds herself drawn back to her old friend Sir Walter Raleigh and his last, desperate plot to see a Catholic monarch on the throne. And then her troubles really begin…

Book 3 in the Frances Gorges series.

As she helps to nurse the dying Queen Elizabeth, Frances Gorges longs for the fields and ancient woods of her parents' Hampshire estate, where she has learned to use the flowers and herbs to become a much-loved healer.

Frances is happy to stay in her beloved countryside when the new King arrives from Scotland, bringing change, fear and suspicion. His court may be shockingly decadent, but James's religion is Puritan, intolerant of all the old ways; he has already put to death many men for treason and women for witchcraft.

So when her ambitious uncle forcibly brings Frances to court, she is trapped in a claustrophobic world of intrigue and betrayal - and a ready target for the twisted scheming of Lord Cecil, the King's first minister.
Surrounded by mortal dangers, Frances finds happiness only with the precocious young Princess Elizabeth, and Tom Wintour, the one courtier she can trust. Or can she?

Book 1 in the Frances Gorges series.

Born a tavern keeper's son, Cromwell rose swiftly through the ranks to become Henry VIII's right hand man, and one of the most powerful figures in Tudor history. The architect of England's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries, he oversaw seismic changes in our country's history.

In Belvoir Castle, 1683, the heir of the Earl of Rutland falls suddenly ill. Within a few short weeks he will suffer an excruciating death. Soon the whole family will be stricken with the same terrifying symptoms. It is said witches are to blame, but the author claims to have uncovered a murderous conspiracy at the heart of the injustice.