Böcker av Christie Dickason

Sumptuous, glorious evocation of Jacobean London and Renaissance Italy from the acclaimed author of The Firemaster's Mistress.

A thrilling account of one of English history's most daring women, who risked everything in the dark days leading up to the Civil War. The perfect novel for fans of Suzannah Dunn and Phillipa Gregory.Court beauty, Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, feels frustrated by life with her weak husband. Poverty stricken, they are confined to their country estate and excluded from court life in London after he disastrously allies himself against Elizabeth I.Now, some years later, James I is seated on the English throne. His daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, former confidant of Lucy, has married the King of Bohemia. The precarious political situation in Europe is fraught, setting father against daughter. When Elizabeth and her husband are deposed, exiled and forced on the run, James is in no mood to come to his daughter's aid.Hearing of Elizabeth's predicament, Lucy sees an opportunity to re-establish the Bedford name and offers herself as a peace envoy between the two parties. Setting out on a daring mission across the channel, Lucy discovers she is being manipulated by unscrupulous men, not least the calculating and darkly handsome Duke of Buckingham.Can Lucy tread this most dangerous path, or by risking everything, will she pay the ultimate price?

An epic love story set in the period of Music and Silence, for readers of Rose Tremain and Philippa Gregory.1639. Zeal Beester, mistress of the rolling Hampshire estate of Hawkridge, is pregnant, unwed, and the King has banished her lover to the New World. The Puritan Praise-God Gifford will have her burnt at the stake for depravity.To save herself and the child, Zeal becomes the wife of Philip Wentworth, an ageing soldier and adventurer. But Philip's extraordinary tales of El Dorado only remind her of her exiled lover.As the chaos of Civil War approaches, Zeal begins to rebuild Hawkridge House as the Memory Palace and the secret map of her heart. Part maze, part theatre, part great country house, it enrages the Puritans and inspires in one twisted soul a hatred and envy that only death will satisfy.Should the King be killed, Zeal's lover may return only to find Zeal and the child in their graves...

Not exactly a sequel, but a novel written in parallel with the superb The Lady Tree, in other words sharing some of the same characters but entirely independent of the first book.