Description

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The New York Times bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series explores the dramatic and poignant life of King Henry VIII’s daughter—infamously known as Bloody Mary—who ruled England for five violent years.

Born from young King Henry’s first marriage, his elder daughter, Princess Mary, is raised to be queen once it becomes clear that her mother, Katherine of Aragon, will bear no more children. However, Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn has a devastating influence on the young princess’s future when, determined to sire a male heir, he marries Anne, has his marriage to Katherine declared unlawful, brands Mary illegitimate, and banishes them both from the royal court. But when Anne too fails to produce a son, she is beheaded and Mary is allowed to return to court as the default heir. At age twenty, she waits in vain for her own marriage and children, but who will marry her, bastard that she is?

Yet Mary eventually triumphs and becomes queen, after first deposing a seventeen-year-old usurper, Lady Jane Grey, and ordering her beheading. Any hopes that Mary, as the first female queen regent of England, will show religious toleration are dashed when she embarks on a ruthless campaign to force Catholicism on the English by burning hundreds of Protestants at the stake. But while her brutality will forever earn her the name Bloody Mary, at heart she is an insecure and vulnerable woman, her character forged by the unhappiness of her early years.

In Alison Weir’s masterful novel, the drama of Mary I’s life and five-year reign—from her abusive childhood, marriage, and mysterious pregnancies to the cruelty that marks her legacy—comes to vivid life.

About the Author

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Alison Weir is the New York Times bestselling author of The King’s Pleasure, The Last White Rose, and the novels in the Six Tudor Queens series: Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife; Katheryn Howard, The Scandalous Queen; Anna of Kleve, The Princess in the Portrait; Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen; Anne Boleyn, A King’’s Obsession; and Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen. She has also written numerous earlier novels and historical biographies, including her ongoing series, England’s Medieval Queens.

Praise For…

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“An exquisitely drawn, poignant portrayal of one of history’s most complex, maligned, and fascinating figures . . . Told with all of Alison Weir’s characteristic verve and eye for evocative period detail, this is a book that will stay with you long after the last page has been turned. . . . A must for Tudor fans everywhere.”—Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I

“Utterly convincing and eminently readable . . . This is Alison Weir’s most humane—and most personal—novel yet. Her huge fund of historical knowledge allows her to tackle head-on the challenge of our most controversial queen, at once beleaguered girl and the ‘Bloody Mary’ of black legend. The result is a Mary Tudor we can all accept, without having always to admire.”—Sarah Gristwood, author of The Tudors in Love

“What a totally absorbing read and remarkable novel . . . I was utterly enthralled by the way Weir so skillfully shows the gradual evolution of Mary Tudor, from the tender, brave, and resolute little girl into the desperate woman, so broken by her marriage and the constant political and religious deceits and manipulations around her. It is Weir’s great skill that shows us in the child a glimpse of the compassionate queen that Mary might have been, which really drives home the tragedy of her story in a way I’d never understood it before.”—Karen Maitland, author of Company of Liars

“Thrilling and captivating, this is a brilliant rendering of Mary Tudor and her world. Alison Weir welcomes us into her vivid, tragic, and dangerous life. Beautifully evoked, The Passionate Tudor is unforgettable.”—Kate Williams, author of The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots