Sent into a convent at the age of six, Mary daughter of Edward I, decides to make the best of a bad situation. It soon becomes obvious she is never going to make a good nun Never forgetting that she is a princess by birth, the feisty gambler travels around England, living the high life at daddy's expense, and acquiring numerous other bad "habits" ... including being linked romantically to the Earl of Surrey, John de Warenne.When her Father the King becomes ill and dies, the crown goes to Mary's brother Edward II and the travelling nun attends his disastrous Coronation, rubbing shoulders with the hated Piers Gaveston. For the first time, she is uneasy about the future. Leaving her wayward life behind, she retires to spending a quiet life in Amesbury Priory where she decides to have a chronicle written on the life of her family - a book that exists today.
Ireland, early 1900's...Mary Tierney longs to leave home. Da' Joe is violent and drunk and Mammy downtrodden, aged before her time. She longs to find a new life for herself...so when a job comes up as a domestic in Liverpool, Mary takes the chance. But when she arrives, she finds the job offer is for something very different to what was in the advertisement...something no decent girl would want to get involved in. Terrifies, she flees what is clearly a house of ill-repute, with the sinister 'Ginger Jack' hot on her heels... Will Mary escape the pitfalls of a young immigrant girl and make her way in pre-WWI England? Will she end her days as a servant to others, or will she find love in the end? Based on a true story. Novella of approximately 30,000 words
SACRED KING, a historical fantasy novella about King Richard III, the battle of Bosworth, and its aftermath. In August, 1485, King Richard III rides on the hunt in Bestwood Park, near Nottingham, and sees a disturbing vision, a man being killed in ritualistic manner, his blood given to the hungry Land. Riding into Leicester with his army several days later, eager to face the invading Henry Tudor and defend his crown, he encounters yet more disturbing omens...the old woman Agnes Black upon Bow Bridge, who prophecies his head will strike the stone upon his return from the field. On the day of battle, the King is betrayed and loses his life in a heroic last charge, his blood falling on the red soil of Redemore Plain....but that is not the end.A Lady who walks between Heaven and Hell takes Richard Plantagenet to the Middle Kingdom, like the prophet Thomas the Rhymer many centuries before.Will he join her band of unearthly knights, or will he find a way to escape from what he sees as purgatory?Includes a climax featuring the latter day discovery of the body of Richard III in a car park in Leicester, on the actual anniversary of the King's burial at Greyfriars after Bosworth-the event of his 'return to the world' heralded by brooding storm clouds. A tale of sacrifice and redemption, weaving into the story not only the history of Richard III's final days, but various underlying legends and pieces of folklore connected with the event. SACRED KING is a fantasy, but perhaps most of all it is a story of hope. It tries to ascribe deeper meaning and a greater heroism using powerful archetypes such as The Doomed Hero, prevalent in stories millennia old.Revised Second Edition with NEW FINAL CHAPTER
Compilation of short fiction featuring Richard III and his family. Originally published as three separate volumes: Tales of the White Boar, Loyaulte, and Sons of York.10 tales of historical fiction set in the era of the Wars of the Roses, mostly featuring a younger Richard, as a child and as the Duke of Gloucester.Now listed in chronological order to capture the sweep of the period...from Richard's traumatic birth to Duchess Cecily in 1452, to the sack of Ludlow and the death at Wakefield of the Duke of York and Edmund of Rutland, to the joys of a pilgrimage to Walsingham and subsequent disaster at Olney, when Richard's brother Edward IV is captured by Warwick's men. Then there is exile, and the fancies of a lonely young man abroad, followed by the earnest young Duke taking his wife Anne to the healing springs of Malvern on a journey of remembrance, and a chance meeting with the fickle Duke of Buckingham at a wedding of royal children. The anthology finishes with a sad story of Anne and Richard in Scarborough after the death of their only son, and then with a light hearted ghost tale about the Duke of Buckingham haunting Debenhams. OVER 140 PAGES. With historical notes where applicable
I, Richard Plantagenet. Part 1, Tante le Desiree. Barnet 1471. He is eighteen. He is wounded...He is the King's brother, Richard of Gloucester. He soon finds out not all battles are fought on the battlefield...not in the House of York.He must deal with fractious George in order to marry Anne Neville--but in the end he gets the girl AND her lands A bawdy and bloody, furious and funny tale of the Wars of the Roses, told from Richard's first person point of view
1483, King Edward IV dies unexpectedly. His brother Richard rides to Northampton to meet with the new young King, Edward V. Intrigue abounds and the young boy is never crowned, after Bishop Stillington comes forth with a startling revelation.Richard becomes King, the last Son of York, the Last Plantagenet.Told in first person, from Richard's viewpoint. Humour and tragedy combine in this epic of the Wars of the Roses.
Esmerelda Midnight. Not her true name, but the one she must bear. She is 12, shy, overweight, ungainly. Her destiny is to be a servant to the wealthy Snows and Midwinters, the chief worshippers of Our Lady of the Snows, whose sacred mountain overlooks the bay. Her teacher, the cruel Sestren Agrippa, is her bane, and also the mistress of the orphanage where Esme lives--the crumbling, mouldering manor where Bloody Bones lives in the cellar, eating bad kids. It seems life will never get better... Then Esme meets an old man, Reynard the Fox. Mr Reynard turns out to be a wizard, one of the very last. When the land of Adanica fell to ice and fire, his daughter Rosamunda was lost--the last wizard's child with vast powers untapped. He is bound to his mansion of Hall i' the Wood, watched by evil beings...but he begs Esme to find his missing child for him. The Rose's powers are needed swiftly...for the Sestren are planning for the Great Feast where all humankind will perish. On Hallowmas Night, full of fear and oppression, Esmerelda must get a new Rose to refresh the old Rose's failing powers...but she must climb the Tree of Life on the Island of the Dead.Then the great Whale-King Skan-ar must bear her across the waves to halt a terrible Sacrifice...A dystopian novel with the unusual setting of an alternate world post-Apocalyptic 1970's Canada, this unusual fantasy novel is an exciting and thought-provoking story for young teens through to adults. Partly based on real life, co-mingled with ageless fantasy archetypes and the local lore of Victoria, Canada. Anti-bullying themes.
Eleanor of Provence, child bride, loving wife, loving mother of Edward Longshanks.Eleanor, hated queen, despised for her spendthrift ways, pelted by the mob.Eleanor, foe of the unnerving, unsettling warrior Simon de Montfort and his barons, who threaten her husband's reign...and lifeEleanor, taking vows in a convent in Amesbury, where she vanished from history, even her grave lost in time....
Rosamund Clifford is the lover of Henry II. Of all his mistresses, she isthe one he loves. To protect her from his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, he placed her within an odd, frightening maze near the palace of Woodstock. He promises one day to make her Queen.When Eleanor encourages his sons to rebel, she is imprisoned and Henry speaks of annulment. Rosamund, it seems, will be raised higher than she ever dreamed.But treachery is afoot at Rosamund's Bower...
Twelfth Night has come to Minster Lovell Hall. Francis Lovell and his wife Nan Fitz Hugh have arranged a fabulous celebration to entertain their friends, Richard Plantagenet and Anne Neville, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. The feast is served in splendour, the Mummers arrive to perform the traditional play with much jollity and hi-jinks, and the Lord of Misrule is crowned. But when a strange, mysterious storyteller arrives calling himself Jack Rhymer, the evening takes on a darker tone...as he tells the haunting tale of the Mistletoe Bride, a maiden who vanished at the old hall upon her wedding night. A dangerous game is then begun, urged on by the Lord of Misrule. Will history repeat itself at Minster Lovell Hall?A short novelette set at the time of the Wars of the Roses, featuring Francis Lovell and Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III. approximately 14,000 words.
The Tudor Era has dawned. Richard III lies in a shallow grave at Greyfriars in Leicester and Henry Tudor sits upon an uneasy throne.Richard's illegitimate daughter, Katherine Plantagenet, wife of one year to William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, struggles to find her path in the strange new world of Tudor England. Only fifteen years old, she fears her husband will put her aside due to her relationship to the deposed King.Frightened and alone, she recalls the events of her younger years, when Richard, Duke of Gloucester took her and her half-brother John to be raised at Sheriff Hutton Castle. Days when it seemed a baseborn girl could reach dizzying heights...Days of happiness before her father took the crown, before her cousins Edward and Richard vanished from the Tower of London, before beautiful Elizabeth of York danced in gold at the Christmas Feast of 1484 and started rumours flying...
Eleanor Talbot, newly widowed after the Battle of Blore Heath, meets Edward, Earl of March.It is a time of trials when the Lancastrians and Yorkists fight for supremacy...and the throne of England.The Talbots are staunch Lancastrians; Edward is the Son of York.The Battles of Mortimer's Cross and the bloodbath of Towton lead to Edward taking the crown.A secret marriage is hatched between the young King and Eleanor, but the "secret queen" is never announced to the Council.King Edward's womanising reaches new heights as, within a short time, his eye falls on another widowed beauty, Elizabeth Woodville, whom he also marries in a private, hidden ceremony. Mortified by all that has happened, Eleanor seeks atonement in religion, ...but will her past catch her up?Will the secret remain secret?A story of love and lust spanning two families, the Talbots and the Woodvilles, and two women both similar and yet very different. One who became Queen of England, and one who might have been.
Feast of the Innocents: A Christmas Tale of Richard III and his Son - It is Bleak Midwinter, and a snowstorm engulfs Middleham Castle. Young Edward finds himself spirited away into the whirling snow by a mysterious old woman. What could she possibly want with the young heir of the Duke of Gloucester? A short Winter story, featuring a heart warming tale of father & son, and a woman's grief for her long dead child from the best-selling author of "SACRED KING" and "I, RICHARD PLANTAGENET. Approximately 45 pages
Isabella Lawrence is a photographer in modern day London. Her specialty is photographing old buildings prior to their restoration.One night she goes on a shoot in a derelict theatre. As she takes her shots in the auditorium, she suddenly realises someone else, someone unknown, is in the building with her. Panicking, she runs out onto the stage--and the rotted boards crumble beneath her feet, hurling her down, down, down...into the past into the body of of a jobbing Victorian actress called Arabella Lorne.Arabella is asked to marry the mysterious brooding landowner, Sir Augustus Stannion--a marriage strictly one of convenience. Despite this sham going against all Isabella believes in, she agrees, for she has no idea how else to survive in this bygone era, so familiar and yet so strange. Eventually, she comes to love the austere master of Elvingstone Manor...and there marriage is a sham no longer.But Augustus has secrets, and so does his ruinous, Gothic mansion and the eerie churchyard beyond.. Something uncanny dwells in the crypt in the graveyard, and its presence and its malice, threatens both Stannion and Isabella, body and soul.Should Isabella fight against this unearthly power and for the man she has grown to love...or should she save herself and seek a time portal through which she can return home?A story of time travel, time slips, romance, fantasy and faerie revenge
In 1900 B.C., the Shaman known as Merlin seeks for a youth bound by high destiny to assume chieftaincy over Stonehenge and the British tribes.A prehistoric retelling of the Arthurian myths that mingles archaeology with historical fantasy.
A MAN WHO WOULD BE KING: The Duke of Buckingham and Richard IIINovember 2 1483. As Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham stands on the scaffold of Salisbury Market Square, accused of high treason, he reflects on his life during the turbulent era of the Wars of the Roses.After the death of his grandfather, the old Duke, Henry (known as Harry) is sent to the court of the new King Edward IV and placed into the household of his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Harry, coming from a rich and noble line, is considered a a "prize catch" for the Woodvilles, and soon he is forced, aged ten, to marry one of the many Woodville girls, causing a burning resentment that lasts a lifetime.Throughout Harry's youth at court, he sporadically comes into contact with the King's younger brother, Richard of Gloucester. Upon Edward's death, they form an alliance, which sees the two Dukes secure the young Edward V, uncrowned king, and thwart the Woodvilles, who do not wish for Richard to become Lord Protector of England.But when Bishop Stillington reveals a dark secret and Edward IV's children are declared bastards, Harry has other ideas for himself and Richard. Henry Stafford takes upon himself the role of Kingmaker.Richard of Gloucester is crowned as King Richard III, but despite receiving wealth and lands and offices, Harry is not content. The thought of a crown for himself begins to haunt his waking dreams. How far will a man go to win a crown? Betrayal, rebellion...murder?The story of the man Richard III called 'the most untrue creature living...'Told entirely from Buckingham's own first person viewpoint, this new novel is set within the wider landscape of the author's highly praised, I Richard Plantagenet series.
Richard Duke of York lies dead outside the walls of Sandal Castle, lured to his death by false talk of a Christmas truce. His second son Edmund, aged just seventeen, is murdered by Butcher Clifford, his blood staining the cobbles of Wakefield bridge outside the chapel where he had vainly sought sanctuary.The House of York has fallen...but not for long.The Lancastrian army of Margaret of Anjou has reaped the whirlwind with the treacherous slaughter at Wakefield.Edward of March, Duke Richard's heir, is coming after them, tall, handsome, young and a fearsome warrior...and he wants vengeance for the death of his father and beloved younger brother.He fights his foes at Mortimer's Cross, where Three Suns mysteriously appear in the sky as an omen, and then fares on through an unseasonal snowstorm to the field of Towton...and victory in the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil.The prize--the Crown of England.From the author of the I, RICHARD PLANTAGENET seriesA novella of 25,000 words
