Bestseller Gregory captivates again with this expertly crafted historical about the beautiful young Virgin Queen, portrayed as a narcissistic, neurotic home-wrecker.
Touchstone
August 2005
Featuring: Amy Dudley; Robert Dudley; Elizabeth I
464 pages ISBN: 0743269268 Trade Size (reprint) Add to Wish List
In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out
the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen. One
woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is Amy
Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth's
ambitious leap to the throne will draw her husband back to
the center of the glamorous Tudor court, where he was born
to be.
Elizabeth's excited triumph is short-lived. She has
inherited a bankrupt country where treason is rampant and
foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisor William Cecil
warns her that she will survive only if she marries a
strong prince to govern the rebellious country, but the one
man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the
ambitious Robert Dudley. As the young couple falls in love,
a question hangs in the air: can he really set aside his
wife and marry the queen? When Amy is found dead, Elizabeth
and Dudley are suddenly plunged into a struggle for
survival.
Philippa Gregory's The Virgin's Lover answers the question
about an unsolved crime that has fascinated detectives and
historians for centuries. Intelligent, romantic, and
compelling, The Virgin's Lover presents a young woman on
the brink of greatness, a young man whose ambition exceeds
his means, and the wife who cannot forgive them.