Living in exile in the English countryside, the twenty-five-year old Princess Elizabeth awaits her fate during the waning years of her ill and childless half sister's reign. Despite an occasional truce, there has always been bad blood between Queen Mary and the princess since Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, replaced Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, in the heart of King Henry VIII. Elizabeth has already survived imprisonment in the Tower of London after a rebellion is raised in her name, and now the half sisters live in an uneasy detente that is threatened by the arrival of a murderer who moves too easily through the secret society of Queen Mary's court.Little does Elizabeth know that in the autumn of 1558, she will be called upon to explore not only England's rural heartland, but also her own heart. At great risk to her person and her nation's future, she plunges herself into an investigation of a multiple murder, where she might very well become a master poisoner's next victim. Read Less