A series of historical fiction based on the lives of women of the Tudor Era, written by “Laurien Gardner,” aka. Jennifer Ashley, Sarah Hoyt, and Julianne Ardian Lee. Titles include Spanish Bride, A Lady Raised High, Plain Jane, A Question of Guilt, The Queen’s Handmaiden, No Will But His, and Her Mother’s Daughter.

 

The Spanish Bride:
A Novel of Catherine of Aragon

by Laurien Gardner (aka Julianne Ardian Lee)

Catherine of Aragon treasured the romantic ideal of the chivalric knight in shining armor. Believing she’d married one, she surrendered her fate to a monarch whose treatment of his wives would make him notorious.

Estrella de Montoya is maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon, the Spanish princess betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Traveling away from home for the first time, Estrella shares her mistress’s vision of England as a land of chivalric knights and courtly love. Her heart flutters at the bright prospects before them, as the English rejoice at Catherine’s arrival.

Decades later, Estrella has learned from bitter experience that poetic legends are not to be confused with real life. But Catherine, long married to Arthur’s brother Henry, clings to her illusions—even when Henry, desperate for a male heir, seeks to set her aside for a younger woman. At great danger to herself, Estrella remains loyal to her lady, the true queen.

Through it all, Estrella remains uniquely positioned to witness Catherine’s triumphs and tragedies, as they risk everything against a king to whom human life—let alone chivalry—is nothing compared to his own personal desires…

Sample chapter
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A Question of Guilt:
A Novel of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Death of Henry, Lord Darnley

by Julianne Lee

She was a queen who loved unwisely and did not rule well. But was Mary Stuart guilty of murder?

It is three days after the execution of Mary Stuart and the streets of London are buzzing with the news. But not everyone is convinced that the scandalized Queen of Scots was guilty of plotting against her cousin, Elizabeth I—or that she was involved in the murder of her husband, Henry, Lord Darnley.

Scottish-born Lady Janet de Ros, wife of a wealthy English merchant, thinks the ravishingly beautiful Mary was merely an innocent bystander, betrayed by the machinations of a disloyal court. Determined to uncover the truth, Janet travels from Fotheringhay Castle to Edinburgh to pursue an investigation that could endanger her life—and bring disgrace to her own family.

Sample chapter
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Her Mother’s Daughter:
A Novel of Queen Mary Tudor

by Julianne Lee

Her name was Mary Tudor. First of the Tudor queens, she has been known throughout history as Bloody Mary. But does she deserve her vicious reputation?

She was the only daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and half sister to Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Mary Tudor began her life as the sweetly innocent, pampered Princess of Wales—until the age of eleven, when the father she adored cast aside the mother she worshipped, and declared Mary a bastard. Only after years of exile did Mary finally rise to the throne alongside the man who, aside from her father, was her greatest love—and her greatest betrayer.

Told by Mary herself and the people around her, this grand-scale novel takes us back to the glittering court of sixteenth-century England, and tells the tragic story of a fascinating, largely misunderstood woman who withstood the treachery and passion around her to become one of England’s most vilified queens…

Sample chapter
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