Blog Tour Excerpt: The Catherine Howard Conspiracy by Alexandra Walsh

The Catherine Howard Conspiracy

by Alexandra Walsh

Published March 28, 2019

Sapere Books

ebook, paperback; 468 pages

What secrets were covered up at the court of Henry VIII?

Whitehall Palace, England, 1539

When Catherine Howard arrives at the court of King Henry VIII to be a maid of honour in the household of the new queen, Anne of Cleves, she has no idea of the fate that awaits her.

Catching the king’s fancy, she finds herself caught up in her uncle’s ambition to get a Howard heir to the throne.

Terrified by the ageing king after the fate that befell her cousin, Anne Boleyn, Catherine begins to fear for her life…

Pembrokeshire, Wales, 2018

Dr Perdita Rivers receives news of the death of her estranged grandmother, renowned Tudor historian Mary Fitzroy.

Mary inexplicably cut all contact with Perdita and her twin sister, Piper, but she has left them Marquess House, her vast estate in Pembrokeshire.

Perdita sets out to unravel their grandmother’s motives for abandoning them, and is drawn into the mystery of an ancient document in the archives of Marquess House, a collection of letters and diaries claiming the records of Catherine Howard’s execution were falsified…

What truths are hiding in Marquess House? What really happened to Catherine Howard?

And how was Perdita’s grandmother connected to it all?

The Catherine Howard Conspiracy is the first book in the Marquess House trilogy, a dual timeline conspiracy thriller with a twist on a well-known period of Tudor history.

Buy on Amazon

Excerpt:

“There, her.” The queen pointed as her maids danced. She and the king had been married for two weeks and her English was improving each day. “The fox in the pretty gown. Who is she, Sir Edward?”
     “That’s Mistress Catherine Howard. We call her Kitty,” he replied as Catherine’s red hair gleamed in the morning light. “She’s my wife’s sister.”
     There was a small amount of pride in his voice. Catherine was an excellent dancer.
     “She has hair like a fox.” The queen laughed at her own joke and Edward smiled. He had never really noticed the redness of Catherine’s hair; a hood usually covered it. But here in the queen’s chambers, it was loose while she danced and it was a deep, luxuriant auburn. “You call her Kitty, like a cat?”
     “It’s a familiar name for Catherine,” he explained. “With so many Catherines, it makes it easier to distinguish her.”
     The queen smiled. “You ask your Kitty to teach me to dance,” she said. “Maybe the king, he like it.”
     A shadow drifted across her face, which was quickly replaced by her ever-ready serene and enigmatic smile. Edward beckoned to Isabel and after a brief, whispered conversation, she bobbed a curtsey and retreated.
     “My wife will arrange for you and Kitty to dance together every afternoon so she can teach you the steps,” Edward said.
     “Good, she has pretty ways, like a fox,” sighed the queen.

Q&A with Tony Morgan, Author of Remember, Remember the 6th of November and 1617

Please join me in welcoming Tony Morgan to Let Them Read Books! Tony is celebrating the release of his new novel, 1617, follow-up to his debut, Remember, Remember the 6th of November, both centering on the infamous Gunpowder Plot and its repercussions--both real and imagined. I'm pleased to have him here today answering questions about his books and sharing his fascination with the Gunpowder Plot and this period in England's history.

From the back cover of Remember, Remember the 6th of November:

England in 1605… a country of religious tensions, concerns about terrorism, Europe and increasing government surveillance. A small group of conspirators led by charismatic Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes plan regime change.

Remember, Remember the 6th of November is a thrilling retelling of the story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot – perfect for lovers of the books of C.J. Sansom and S. J. Parris.

Amazon  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Goodreads

Each year on November 5th the skies over the United Kingdom are lit up by a million dancing fireworks. As smoke rises from thousands of bonfires, groups of children toss an effigy of a man they call “the Guy” onto the top. But why?

These annual festivities celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 to blow up Parliament and kill the Protestant king James I. The fact is the man placed onto the fire is no ordinary “Guy”. His name was Guy Fawkes. He was in a band of tightly-knit Catholic conspirators. Led by charismatic Robert Catesby, they planned for regime change in England.

These infamous events are the inspiration for a new BBC TV mini-series, Gunpowder, featuring Game of Thrones star Kit Harington as Robert Catesby. They also form the background for two historical novels written by UK author Tony Morgan, who lives near Guy Fawkes’s birthplace in Yorkshire in northern England.

Hi Tony! Thanks so much for visiting today!

There are lots of novels about the Tudors, what sparked your interest in their cousins and successors the Stuarts?

I almost stumbled into it by accident. I wanted to find out more about why we celebrate November 5th. The more I read, the more hooked I became. Terrorists, religious unrest, government surveillance, women attempting to make their way in a man’s world, there was so much to write about.

Your first book is called Remember, Remember the 6th of November; the obvious question is why the 6th and not the 5th?

I have to be careful here. I’m on spoiler alert! The story is set in the tense first week of November 1605. It focuses on King James, Queen Anne and the government on one side and the Gunpowder Plotters on the other. Catesby, Fawkes and their co-conspirators are finalizing their plans to blow up Parliament and kill the king. They also intend to start a popular uprising, kidnap the king’s daughter Princess Elizabeth, convert her to Catholicism and place her on the throne.

The main action runs past the 5th of November and into the 6th, hence the date of the title. The reason becomes clear in the final chapters.

There have been a few murmurings about the new Gunpowder series not sticking too closely to the historical facts. Did you take a similar approach?

For the majority of Remember, Remember the 6th of November the plot sticks closer to the facts than the TV series but of course both are works of fiction inspired by real events. Like the TV series I want people to understand the Plotters’ motives, even if we don’t necessarily agree with what they did.  

Near the end of the book, I began to deliberately divert the story from the truth. A key sub-plot focuses on an anonymous letter which warned Catholic Lord Monteagle not to attend Parliament. This was real and it was used to alert the authorities, but who sent it? Was it one of the Plotters or perhaps a government fit-up? There are lots of theories, but to this day nobody really knows, so I invented my own version. Based upon the request of a book club, the book includes a handy “what really happened” guide to clarify questions on the blurring between fact and fiction.

Review: And I Darken by Kiersten White

From the Back Cover:

NO ONE EXPECTS A PRINCESS TO BE BRUTAL. 

And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, who’s expected to rule a nation, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes the first book in a dark, sweeping new series in which heads will roll, bodies will be impaled . . . and hearts will be broken.

My Thoughts:

As soon as I saw the description of this book, I had to have it. It turned out to be nothing like I was expecting. And boy, was I impressed. Written like it flowed from the pen of one of my favorite historical fiction novelists, this is the tale of a young Vlad the Impaler, but with one major twist: Vlad's a girl. The back cover blurb actually does a really good job of summing up the plot, so I will skip the detailed recap and tell you what I loved about it.

This is the story of Lada, a girl in a man's world, a brutal world of conquerors and the conquered, a world where women are little more than heir-producing ornaments. But emboldened by her father's admiration for her fierceness, she dares to envision a different future for herself, one where she rules her beloved Wallachia. But it's also the story of her little brother, Radu. The son of a warrior who would rather be a scholar. A dreamer. A boy overshadowed by his savage sister. Theirs is a complicated relationship. But when their father sends them to the Ottoman Empire court as hostages to ensure his good behavior and then defaults on his promises, their relationship becomes one of ensuring mutual survival. Enter the sultan's son, Mehmed, and the ties that bind become both lifelines and cages. Thrust into the center of power, intrigue, and war, all three come of age knowing what is expected of them but daring to hope for something different. When opportunities arise and are seized, betrayal, heartbreak, and bittersweet triumph result.

Review: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

From the Back Cover:

The comical, fantastical, romantical, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey. In My Lady Jane, coauthors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows have created a one-of-a-kind fantasy in the tradition of The Princess Bride, featuring a reluctant king, an even more reluctant queen, a noble steed, and only a passing resemblance to actual history—because sometimes history needs a little help.

At sixteen, Lady Jane Grey is about to be married off to a stranger and caught up in a conspiracy to rob her cousin, King Edward, of his throne. But those trifling problems aren’t for Jane to worry about. Jane gets to be Queen of England.

Like that could go wrong.

My Thoughts:

I've often thought Lady Jane Grey to be one of the more tragic figures in history, so I jumped at the chance to read this alternate version of how it should have happened by three young adult authors I admire. And I knew from the dedication page, when I read, "For everyone who knows there was enough room for Leonardo DiCaprio on that door," that this book and I were going to get along very well.

Sixteen-year-old King Edward VI is dying, and his biggest regret is that he's going to die a virgin. He hasn't even kissed a girl. His favorite girl is his cousin Jane, but he's just been convinced to sign off on her marriage to another boy. One from a family of unfortunate noses, but since Jane's nose is always in a book, perhaps she won't mind. Still, it sure would be nice if Edward could take a break from his nurses and councilors and just be a regular teenage boy for what little time he has left.

By the age of sixteen, Lady Jane Grey has been betrothed four times. None of them worked out. Now her dear cousin has gone and promised her to yet another boy of noble lineage, but she's pretty sure this one won't work out either. At least she hopes so since the as-yet-unseen groom's father and brother have the largest noses in the kingdom, and her betrothed is rumored to be quite the ladies' man. And he probably doesn't even like books. But alas, it figures this is the wedding that will actually take place, and wonder of wonders, her new husband turns out to be quite the handsome stud! Literally.

Gifford Dudley--call him G--is cursed. Every morning as the sun rises, he turns into a horse. Every evening as the sun sets, he turns back into a boy. Thus his conspicuous absence from court, even though his father is Lord Protector of the realm. He spends his days frolicking through the countryside and his nights dallying with every tavern wench and village maid he can get his hands on. If you believe the stories, that is. The truth is that while G is supposed to be making his father proud by "dalliancing," he's really off attending . . . poetry readings?! This whole getting married thing is really going to put a damper on his lifestyle.

I'm going to avoid any further description of what happens when these three get together since most of you already know what happened to Edward VI, Jane Grey, and Guildford Dudley, and I don't want to spoil any surprises as these writers turn history on its ear and give them the story they should have had. This book is just such a delight to read. And it throws all the rules of writing historical fiction out the window. For example, modern expressions and behavior in historical fiction have long been no-nos. But here, the authors never let the reader forget that they are writing in the 21st century, and it works. Oh, how it works! It works because it's hilarious. The authors occasionally insert their own opinions on anachronisms and some of the more outlandish historical details, modern expressions are sprinkled throughout with a Tudor twist, and if you're paying close attention, you'll find references to The Princess Bride and Game of Thrones too.