If you are reading this, you are excited about the new season of the Spanish Princess, coming up on Starz starting October 11. Me, too!
Do you want a fun review of the period and characters to be ready? Would you like to see some of them as they looked in real life? Would you like to learn about the beginning of Queen Katherine's reign, in an entertaining way?
If you said yes, even once, grab my latest murder mystery, Henry VIII, Queen Katherine and the Cannon Conspiracy. The e-book will likely be FREE on Amazon for a period of time, when I bring it out—very soon, I promise. (E-mail me via my website if interested and I'll send you a link when it's available.)
Queen Katherine and Margaret Pole are major figures in the book, as are Father (later Cardinal) Wolsey, Sir Charles Brandon, Thomas (later Sir Thomas) More, Henry's sister Mary, and of course, Henry VIII himself. I guarantee an exciting mystery and a surprise solution—enough said about that.
Cannon Conspiracy (plot summary below) background on historical characters in a way that is simply impossible on television. All my "real history mysteries" are "candy-coated history" because they encapsulate the historical record and make it easier to swallow. If you haven't had the stomach to read real history books on the War of the Roses and have never figured out how all those Shakespeare history plays interrelate—but you'd like an easy, entertaining summary—my book will provide it for you. Margaret Pole, who was very much in the middle of the War or Roses if you consider it as a family saga, will give you a brief, dramatic and emotional account of the decades of family feuds that earned that label, as only a family member could. One of the "pretenders" to the throne will tell you his story, as will the de la Pole family member (Margaret's cousin) who spent nearly four decades in the Tower of London, longer than any other person in history. It's all real history, but told in a far more entertaining way than you get in history books. There is also an "Afterword" that supplements the history, points out where I have taken sides on historical controversies and delineates fact from fiction, in case the reader is unsure. It should be obvious, so you need not read the Afterword unless you are a history buff who wants more information. Regardless, as with all my books, you will learn things that neither Starz nor most historians will mention.
"History buff" describes me. I was a Renaissance history major at Stanford, and love good historical fiction. My previous Nicola Machiavelli mysteries, which will eventually span the entire High Renaissance, average 4+ stars on Amazon with more than 225 reviews. (Here's a link: https://www.amazon.com/Maryann-Philip/e/B009WCCZ6O/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1 ) The first, A Borgia Daughter Dies, covers the entire history of the infamous Borgia family, and the Borgias' odd link to Leonardo da Vinci. The second, Da Vinci Detects, details Leonardo da Vinci's persecution as an alleged homosexual and his greatest accomplishments. The third, Martin Luther and Murder, shows Luther's shock and horror at the corruption of Rome when he actually visited there as a young monk, an experience that would later change the world.
The English Renaissance began with Henry VIII, who is roughly the same age as Nicola Machiavelli, my brilliant and beautiful female protagonist. For this reason, Nicola was destined for England to showcase long-forgotten but positive aspects of Henry's early reign, long before the Spanish Princess came to Starz. Why did a king with such a brilliant start come to such a spectacularly scandalous finish? You will find a surprisingly simple though disputed answer to this question in The Cannon Conspiracy.
Find out more at maryannphilip.com. Again, if you want to know when the book is free, contact me through my website. I hope to have it up by October 1.
Oh...and here's a plot summary:
Assassins steal cannons Henry VIII ordered from Italy's finest armory and behead those guarding them. Is one of England's feuding families determined to reignite the War of the Roses, or does the young king have new enemies? Caught in the middle between a lustful King Henry, his jealous Queen Katherine and the unknown conspirators is the brilliant and beautiful Nicola Machiavelli, who delivered the cannons. The King pursues her for sex and threatens her with death. The Queen, seeking to protect everyone, asks her to investigate. Nicola will explore coastal castles and witness the splendor of Tudor Christmas traditions to expose crimes that endanger Henry's crown.