Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | MYSTERY BUC | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Loyal Servant. Devoted Friend. Perfect target.
Rumor has linked Queen Elizabeth I to her Master of Horse, Robin Dudley. And what rumors, at that: but for his ailing wife, Amy, Dudley would wed her majesty, the gossipmongers are whispering. To quell idle tongues, Elizabeth dispatches Ursula Blanchard to tend to the sick woman's needs. But not even Ursula can prevent the "accident" that takes Amy's life. Did she fall or was she pushed? Was Ursula a pawn of Dudley and the Queen?
Suddenly Ursula finds herself at the center of the scandal, trying to protect Elizabeth as she loses her heart to a Frenchman who may be flirting with sedition against her Queen. She can trust no one, neither her lover nor her monarch, as she sets out to find the truth in a glittering court that conceasls a wellspring of blood and lies.
Author Notes
Fiona Buckley is the author of eight historical mystery novels featuring Ursula Blanchard: To Shield the Queen, The Doublet Affair, Queen's Ransom, To Ruin a Queen, Queen of Ambition, A Pawn for a Queen, The Fugitive Queen , and The Siren Queen . She lives in North Surrey, England.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Buckley makes use of some happily anachronistic narration in a lively mystery series kickoff set in 1560. Impoverished but well-born, Ursula Blanchard is blessed not only with the sharp tongue and quick wit characteristic of Elizabethan England but also with a very modern self-awareness. Ursula, newly widowed at 26, also has enough skillsboth literary and mathematicalto impress her majesty, Elizabeth I, into taking her on as a lady-in-waiting. Can the young queen, 18 months into her reign, control the schemers and plotters, the sowers of religious dissent and the scandalmongers who permeate her court? To dispel rumors of an unsuitable alliance with her master of horse, Robin Dudley, and to assure the court that she means his ailing young wife no harm, the queen sends Ursula herself to care for the woman. Despite Ursula's vigilance, Amy Dudley dies under suspicious circumstances. Was she murdered? Ursula and her two loyal but sometimes exasperating servants, after some haphazard but fruitful sleuthing, uncover a complex plot that hints at treason. In her first mystery, former journalist and editor Buckley shows a deft hand with strong characterization and creates a plot that spins merrily and wickedly through palace, manor house and intensely beautiful countryside. Ursula is a force to be reckoned withaudacious, intensely loyal and beguiling. Her relationship with the young queen is just one of the elements that make this a promising series debut. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
This light and enjoyable historical mystery is designed as the introductory work in a series featuring Ursula Blanchard, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I during the 1600s. Because Ursula is uncommonly sharp-eyed and quick-witted, she is sent to visit the wife of a court courtier (and the queen's rumored lover) who has mysteriously taken ill. Court gossip has it that the wife is being poisoned to clear the way for the husband to marry the queen. Ursula is to protect the queen's reputation by making sure that the woman is not suffering from unnatural causes. But during her visit, the wife dies of a broken neck, and under very questionable circumstances. Continuing her investigation, Ursula discovers a plot to topple the throne; then one of her servants is murdered, and her daughter is taken hostage. Ursula finds a way to shield both the crown and her own family; in the course of doing so, she is recruited as an agent for the queen's spymaster. --Eric Robbins
Kirkus Review
An accomplished debut set in 1560 at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I. Impoverished young widow Ursula Blanchard, whose mother had served Queen Elizabeth's mother, has agreed to join Elizabeth's Ladies of the Presence Chamber. Estranged from her own and her late husband's families, she leaves behind her faithful groom John Wilton and puts small daughter Meg in the care of nursemaid Bridget. Once at Court, Ursula grows quickly aware of gossip about the young, unmarried Queen and her Master of the Horse, Robin Dudley. Dudley's wife Amy is said to be dying (amid rumors of poisoning) at Cumnor Place, some miles away. Her death, of course, would free Dudley to marry the Queen--an unpopular idea in many high places. Meanwhile, Ursula has acquired a suitor of her own--the wealthy Frenchman Matthew de la Roche--but when Dudley asks her to move to Cumnor Place, to comfort Amy (and perhaps to stop the rumors), she readily agrees. The handsome salary will help to pay Bridget, her own maid Fran Dale, and newly rehired John Wilton. Ursula finds Cumnor Place a strange household where steward Forster rules with tightfisted authority, and she comes to believe that there is a plot on Amy's life. Events prove her right, but other plots are also afoot, one of them setting Ursula on a slippery path of self-denial and discovery. The pseudonymous Buckley, a British author who's written other nonmystery fiction, maintains high suspense throughout a lively debut that's filled with vivid characters, religious conflict, subplots, and power plays. Ursula is the essence of iron cloaked in velvet--a heroine to reckon with.
Library Journal Review
In order to quell widespread rumors about their supposed murderous intentions, Elizabeth I and Sir Robert Dudley dispatch one of her ladies-in-waiting, young widowed mother Ursula Blanchard, to help tend Lord Dudley's sickly wife, Amy. Despite Ursula's friendly attentions, Amy dies violently. Ursula's subsequent search for the murderer of a trusted retainer uncovers evidence of Catholic scheming and tests her love for a dashing Frenchman. Buckley's tantalizing re-creation of Elizabethan life and manners is told with intelligence and gentle wit. A noteworthy debut and first of a series. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
