Ballantine Books
January 2008
On Sale: December 26, 2007
Featuring: Jane Grey
432 pages ISBN: 0345495349 EAN: 9780345495341 Trade Size (reprint) Add to Wish List
I am now a condemned traitor . . . I am to die when I have
hardly begun to live.
Historical expertise marries
page-turning fiction in Alison Weir’s enthralling debut
novel, breathing new life into one of the most significant
and tumultuous periods of the English monarchy. It is the
story of Lady Jane Grey–“the Nine Days’ Queen”–a
fifteen-year-old girl who unwittingly finds herself at the
center of the religious and civil unrest that nearly toppled
the fabled House of Tudor during the sixteenth
century.
The child of a scheming father and a
ruthless mother, for whom she is merely a pawn in a dynastic
game with the highest stakes, Jane Grey was born during the
harrowingly turbulent period between Anne Boleyn’s beheading
and the demise of Jane’s infamous great-uncle, King Henry
VIII. With the premature passing of Jane’s adolescent
cousin, and Henry’s successor, King Edward VI, comes a
struggle for supremacy fueled by political machinations and
lethal religious fervor.
Unabashedly honest and
exceptionally intelligent, Jane possesses a sound strength
of character beyond her years that equips her to weather the
vicious storm. And though she has no ambitions to rule,
preferring to immerse herself in books and religious
studies, she is forced to accept the crown, and by so doing
sets off a firestorm of intrigue, betrayal, and
tragedy.
Alison Weir uses her unmatched skills as a
historian to enliven the many dynamic characters of this
majestic drama. Along with Lady Jane Grey, Weir vividly
renders her devious parents; her much-loved nanny; the
benevolent Queen Katherine Parr; Jane’s ambitious cousins;
the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, who will stop at nothing to
seize the throne; and the protestant and future queen
Elizabeth. Readers venture inside royal drawing rooms and
bedchambers to witness the power-grabbing that swirls around
Lady Jane Grey from the day of her birth to her unbearably
poignant death. Innocent Traitor paints a complete and
compelling portrait of this captivating young woman, a
faithful servant of God whose short reign and brief life
would make her a legend.
“An impressive debut. Weir
shows skill at plotting and maintaining tension, and she is
clearly going to be a major player in the . . . historical
fiction game.” –The Independent
“Alison Weir is
one of our greatest popular historians. In her first work of
fiction . . . Weir manages her heroine’s voice brilliantly,
respecting the past’s distance while conjuring a dignified
and fiercely modern spirit.” –London Daily
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