Anne Stevens

It is the winter of 1542, and the snow lies deeply on the ground across England. Catherine Howard languishes in the Tower of London, hoping for a reprieve that will never come. The Austin Friars machine cannot save the queen from her fate, and turns its attention instead to pushing through those reforms and laws that Thomas Cromwell holds most dear.The king is in a dark mood. He has lost his beloved Cully to the executioner, and he still groans at how easily the fellow betrayed his trust. Still, Will Draper, thought lost, is found again, and back by Henry's side. Miriam Draper prospers, and the Draper Company now has trading posts in Portugal, France, Spain and the Barbary Coast, whilst she deals with merchants as far afield as Arabia, Cathay and India. Despite this success, Miriam still craves more. She envisions planting a colony of her own people in Newfoundland, and then pressing on to find a passage across the continent, until she can reach the land of India by a western route... a route that she alone will command. Amidst all this planning, Richard Cromwell is in despair. His lover, Lady Jane is under sentence of death, alongside Queen Catherine, and he can find no way to save her. The time seems ripe for the Attorney General of England, Sir Richard Rich, to make his bold bid for power.Allied with the Duke of Norfolk, and with Sir Lance Gibbison as his willing henchman, Rich puts in motion a diabolical plot that will bring ruin down on Will Draper, his wife, and all those foolish enough to support the Austin Friars cabal.The king, having dithered over Catherine Howard's fate, finally makes up his mind, and so becomes a widower once more. The deed is scarcely done when the Seymour brothers, and the king's other advisors, press him to re-marry. This time, it must be to a woman above reproach... a Caesar's Wife. Katheryn Parr is an attractive widow, with no dark past to be exposed. She is also kind, and ministering, towards both Henry, and his children. Is the king to have, finally, some golden years of happiness?All the usual characters are woven into the narrative, beside real figures from history. Will Draper has a mysterious disappearance to solve, Miriam must involve some heroic sort in her scheme to conquer the New World, and her eye falls on Ibrahim al Rashid... charlatan, and rogue. The trouble is, Ibrahim is no fool, and he knows that the world is flat. Sail far enough, and he will simply fall off the edge, and into oblivion! Though persuaded to the task, the Moor takes precautions, and sets about using the genius of his long dead hero... Leonardo da Vinci. The world may well be flat, but Ibrahim's invention will not let him down. 'Katheryn the Quean' abounds with some of the most black hearted villains yet, and every crime imaginable is committed, as Will and his friends fight to preserve their way of life... and even their very lives.Alliances are made, and broken, and the king finds himself caught up in a plot to ruin his best man. Henry strives to see Will Draper exonerated, but the evidence seems irrefutable. Thefts from years before, supported by contemporary documents, and sealed under the King's Examiner's name. Richard Rich stays in the shadows, and works his evil, whilst Norfolk tries to wheedle his way back into Henry's good books, and Thomas Cromwell seeks to maintain his grip over Henry from beyond the grave.Anne Stevens writes good fiction, and good history. She blends the fictional characters into the real history, and comes up with another winning novel.The TUDOR CRIMES series is vast in scope, and it covers the great Tudor period, from 1529 and the death of Cardinal Wolsey, through the six marriages of Henry, King of England, Ireland and France, and beyond. "WINTER KING" is the first in this epic series, and "KATHERYN THE QUEAN" is number eighteen.All 18 titles are available through AMAZON as e-books, and numbers 1 to 10 are also in paperback format from AMAZON.

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