Summary

THE LOVE STORY THAT CHANGED HISTORY

From "a gifted literary talent" comes a sweeping epic of defiant love, high adventure, and the resilience of the human spirit. Based on history, this is the story of young Isobel Ingoldesthorpe and Sir John Neville, medieval ancestors of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill, who cultivate their love as violence erupts all around them in England's Wars of the Roses . . .

The Characters:

Henry VI: England's mad, meek, goodhearted Lancastrian king, content to live a monk's chaste life of prayer. His marriage to Marguerite d'Anjou seals his fate.

Marguerite d'Anjou: England's fiery French queen. Wed at fifteen to mad King Henry VI of Lancaster, lonely in a foreign land, all her love and future hopes dwell in Edward, her only child. For him she will fight to the death.

Somerset: the King's cousin of the House of Lancaster. Young, rash and violent, his charm captures the heart of a queen, but not the heart of the one he loves.

York: The King's cousin of the House of York. Prudent, able, and beloved by the people for his compassion and dedication to justice, the Queen's enmity and mismanagement of the realm forces him to remember he owns a better title to the throne than her husband, King Henry, or her son Edward.

Salisbury: Cousin to King Henry and brother-in-law to York, he stands with York when no one else dares.

Warwick: Salisbury's son. Ambitious, flamboyant, brave and dashing he wins the admiration of England, and the enmity of two queens.

Edward of March: York's golden warrior son who wrestles the throne from the House of Lancaster. Irresistibly charming, brilliant, courageous, England's future seems bright under King Edward IV until he reveals his secret marriage to the low born beauty, Elizabeth Woodville —

Elizabeth Woodville: Edward's ambitious and detested Yorkist queen. Gilt-haired, cunning and vindictive, she has a heart as dark as her face is fair.

Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester: Isobel's uncle. Renowned scholar; man of piety; he leaves England to avoid taking sides, and returns a hardened admirer of Dracula, Prince of Transylvania.

Sir Thomas Malory: A knight. His experiences color the tales of King Arthur's court that he writes as he languishes in prison first under Lancaster's Queen, then underYork's.

Ursula: his daughter, friend to Isobel.

John: Warwick's younger brother. A valiant, true and honorable Yorkist knight, he falls in love with Isobel, the ward of his father's mortal foe, Marguerite d'Anjou. For her love, he is willing to pay any price —

Isobel: Ward of the Lancastrian Queen, Marguerite d'Anjou, in love with John, a Yorkist knight. This is her story . . .