Bestselling historian Alison Weir brings Elizabeth I to vivid life in a novel of intrigue, sex, plots, mysteries and tragedies, amid all the colour and pageantry of the Tudor court.

'[Weir] gets right inside the head of the Virgin Queen. The reader has a blissful sense of seeing history as it happens.' - Kate Saunders, The Times

It was an affair that shocked the world.

Elizabeth I is the most sought-after bride in Europe. But though she is formidably intelligent, brave and tempestuous, she is desperately insecure. The tragic events in her past mean she cannot give herself to any man, and yet she relishes the thrill of the chase, the lure of forbidden fruit.

And so, using sex and high-powered diplomacy, she plays what becomes known as the 'Marriage Game', dangling suitors to keep them friendly to her kingdom, while holding them off indefinitely.
But playing this tantalising game with the married Robert Dudley, the son and grandson of traitors, could cost her the throne…