Skip to Main Content

About The Book

A SPELLBINDING NOVEL FROM SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, PHILIPPA GREGORY

'There is only one bond that I trust: between a woman and her sisters. We never take our eyes off each other. In love and in rivalry, we always think of each other.'

When Katherine of Aragon is brought to the Tudor court as a young bride, the oldest princess, Margaret, takes her measure. With one look, each knows the other for a rival, an ally, a pawn, destined – with Margaret’s younger sister Mary – to a sisterhood unique in all the world. The three sisters will become the queens of England, Scotland and France.

United by family loyalties and affections, the three queens find themselves set against each other. Katherine commands an army against Margaret and kills her husband James IV of Scotland. But Margaret’s boy becomes heir to the Tudor throne when Katherine loses her son. Mary steals the widowed Margaret’s proposed husband, but when Mary is widowed it is her secret marriage for love that is the envy of the others. As they experience betrayals, dangers, loss and passion, the three sisters find that the only constant in their perilous lives is their special bond, more powerful than any man, even a king.

Praise for Philippa Gregory:

‘Meticulously researched and deeply entertaining, this story of betrayal and divided loyalties is Gregory on top form’ Good Housekeeping

‘Gregory has popularised Tudor history perhaps more than any other living fiction writer…all of her books feature strong, complex women, doing their best to improve their lives in worlds dominated by men’ Sunday Times

‘Engrossing’ Sunday Express

‘Popular historical fiction at its finest, immaculately researched and superbly told’ The Times

About The Author

No Credit

Philippa Gregory is the author of many New York Times bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognized authority on women’s history. Many of her works have been adapted for the screen including The Other Boleyn Girl. She graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent. She holds honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction. She is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She was awarded a CBE title for services to literature and charity in 2022. She welcomes visitors to her website PhilippaGregory.com.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK (February 21, 2017)
  • Length: 560 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781471133039

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

‘A master storyteller…Gregory captures the intrigue and suspense of life at the Tudor court in vivid detail. She skilfully combines painstaking historical research with a gripping fictional narrative and her characters are so lifelike and engaging that they practically leap from the page’

Daily Express

‘Gregory brilliantly captures the torn loyalties, treacheries and tragedies that lie beneath the historical detail, to entertaining effect’

Good Housekeeping

‘Popular historical fiction at its finest, immaculately researched and superbly told’

The Times

‘Gregory creates a world in which all but the most determined women are tools in the hands of powerful men… past-paced, convincing, vivid and engrossing’

Daily Express

‘Philippa Gregory has another hit on her hands with this gripping page-turner. Her novel simplifies and humanises the complex politics of the period’

Sunday Times

‘Lady Margaret Beaufort – cold, clever, calculating – will stop at nothing to put her son Henry Tudor on the throne. Gregory is very good at describing the bitchiness of the women in this tale of dynastic rivalry’

Daily Telegraph

‘Rollicking, page-turning stuff’

Metro

‘Popular history at its best’

Daily Mail

‘Meticulously researched…for each novel she immerses herself in dozens of primary and secondary sources, before transforming them into vivid fiction’

Sunday Telegraph

‘Philippa Gregory is truly the mistress of the historical novel. It would be hard to make history more entertaining, lively or engaging’

Sunday Express

‘Her novels are filled with strong, determined women who take their fate into their own hands’

Financial Times

‘Rarely has history been so seductive’

Tatler

‘Gregory makes history come alive ... riveting’

Daily Express

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: Philippa Gregory