The Twylight Tower — Karen Harper

It is May 1560. Less than two years have passed since the daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn ascended the throne. As sinister storm clouds gather overhead, twenty-six-year-old Queen Elizabeth bids Godspeed to William Cecil, her most trusted adviser, on his way to Scotland for crucial negotiations. Handsome, ambitious Lord Robert Dudley is at her side. Months later, there he remains, his fragile wife, Amy, tucked away in the country, far from Elizabeth's court. But their leisurely midsummer idyll is cut abruptly short when the court's master lutenist plunges to his death from a parapet beneath the queen's window. The loyal servants of Elizabeth's privy council do not accept the official verdict of accidental death. Their fears are borne out when another tragedy rocks the realm, and points the way to a conspiracy to bring down Elizabeth and seize the throne. As ill winds of treachery swirl and eddy around the royal court, and suspicion falls on those within Elizabeth's intimate circle of trusted allies and admirers, a vengeful enemy slips from the shadows...a traitorous usurper who would be sovereign.