Circle of Pearls — Rosalind Laker

Julia Pallister, daughter of Sotherleigh, was born in 1641 and unknowingly heir to the only remaining gown of Elizabeth I's exquisite wardrobe.

This pearl-encrusted gift to Julia's grandmother, Katherine, represented the staunchly royalist stance which bound together the family, generation after generation.

But in light of the tyranny of Oliver Cromwell's armies, all the Pallisters shared a courage beyond measure, to fight for their king, their home and their freedom.

Three indomitable women band together to preserve their future:

Proud Katherine, old now, but still determined to fight,

The gentle Anne, who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve Sotherleigh for her children,

And Julia, young, wilful and turbulent.

They are determined that one day Julia, in the tradition of the Pallister women, would wear the historic pearl dress for her wedding.

The man she had always loved was her childhood friend, Christopher Wren. The man to whom fate directed her was one of the hated enemy…

But Julia, torn between these two loves, surviving the Puritan regime, the plague, the Great Fire of London, despairs at the memory of the legacy of the pearl encrusted gown.

Will she be able to protect and even wear the prized heirloom?