Ballantine
June 2012
On Sale: June 12, 2012
Featuring: Isabella of Castile
400 pages ISBN: 0345523962 EAN: 9780345523969 Kindle: B005OCYREE Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
No one believed I was destined for greatness. So begins Isabella’s story, in this
evocative, vividly imagined novel about one of history’s
most famous and controversial queens—the warrior who united
a fractured country, the champion of the faith whose reign
gave rise to the Inquisition, and the visionary who sent
Columbus to discover a New World. Acclaimed author C. W.
Gortner envisages the turbulent early years of a woman whose
mythic rise to power would go on to transform a monarchy, a
nation, and the world.
Young Isabella is
barely a teenager when she and her brother are taken from
their mother’s home to live under the watchful eye of their
half-brother, King Enrique, and his sultry, conniving queen.
There, Isabella is thrust into danger when she becomes an
unwitting pawn in a plot to dethrone Enrique. Suspected of
treason and held captive, she treads a perilous path, torn
between loyalties, until at age seventeen she suddenly finds
herself heiress of Castile, the largest kingdom in Spain.
Plunged into a deadly conflict to secure her crown, she is
determined to wed the one man she loves yet who is forbidden
to her—Fernando, prince of Aragon.
As they
unite their two realms under “one crown, one country, one
faith,” Isabella and Fernando face an impoverished Spain
beset by enemies. With the future of her throne at stake,
Isabella resists the zealous demands of the inquisitor
Torquemada even as she is seduced by the dreams of an
enigmatic navigator named Columbus. But when the Moors of
the southern domain of Granada declare war, a violent,
treacherous battle against an ancient adversary erupts, one
that will test all of Isabella’s resolve, her courage, and
her tenacious belief in her destiny.
From the
glorious palaces of Segovia to the battlefields of Granada
and the intrigue-laden gardens of Seville, The Queen’s
Vow sweeps us into the tumultuous forging of a nation
and the complex, fascinating heart of the woman who overcame
all odds to become Isabella of Castile.