A Deadly Betrothal

August 31, 2015
In Buckley’s riotous but initially labored 13th Elizabethan mystery (after 2014’s A Traitor’s Tears), foreign policy matters trigger the action, but the focus is on domestic relationships. Ursula Blanchard, a half-sister of Elizabeth I, refuses one offer of marriage, but cannot easily turn down another advocated by the queen herself. A servant’s death precipitates several members of Ursula’s household to pursue the prospective bridegroom, Gilbert Renard, a French count, and his companions to Dover on suspicions of murder and espionage. Complications abound due to impulsive decisions by several headstrong youths, requiring Ursula and her manservant, Brockley, to use their combined wits to get them all out of a life-threatening scrape. Though she’s an English lady of means, Ursula is beset by demands more typical of a single parent in the 21st century, including work commitments and whining loved ones. She also treats some staff members more like pals than employees. Still, series fans will enjoy the exciting plot twists.

June 26, 2017
Ursula Blanchard, the secret half-sister of Elizabeth I, struggles to deal with darkening conspiracies both at home and at Hampton Court, in Buckley’s dramatic 15th Tudor mystery (after 2016’s Heretic’s Creed). In her last outing, Ursula faced danger in an eerie, snowbound religious house whose female residents possessed deadly secrets. This story may lack its predecessor’s chilling atmosphere, but the narrative’s focus on Elizabethan politics delivers a jolt of excitement in its depiction of the key players in the 1570s court. Buckley paints a sympathetic portrait of Elizabeth, a queen in her mid-40s, pressured to marry a much younger man for the sake of the country and consumed by terror at the prospect of sex and pregnancy. As for the mystery, when a teenage son of a friend disappears and is found murdered, Ursula’s probing begins, with the death of a nobleman raising the stakes. The action builds to a satisfying conclusion.

October 1, 2015

In her 13th outing (after Traitor's Tears), thrice-married Ursula is urged to wed again in order to build an alliance with France; along the way, she also has to ferret out a spy sharing too many secrets with the French and Spanish. Buckley's historical series remains charming and well researched. Ursula is fascinating, and the details regarding life in Elizabethan England are outstanding.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2017
Being the illegitimate sister of Queen Elizabeth I once again puts a widow in danger.Tangled family relationships press Ursula Stannard (Heretic's Creed, 2016, etc.) to help her ward Kate Ferguson's husband Eric Lake's half brother George Harrison's wife, Marjorie, who's a friend of Ursula's Aunt Tabitha. George had run off with a wealthy woman more than 30 years before but now, down on his luck, has returned to batten on Marjorie, who has no choice but to take him in. Meanwhile, Edmund, the abusive husband of Marjorie's sister-in-law Lisa, now claims that her twin children are not his. A twisted mess involving money will lead to more than one murder. Even more tricky for Ursula is a summons from her half sister, Elizabeth, who's contemplating marriage to the Duke of Alencon, a union that would bring a useful alliance with France but would put the queen, who's not quite past childbearing age, in a very dangerous position should she become pregnant. The queen's advisers are split over the prospect of her marriage, and the country as a whole is against her marrying a papist, but Elizabeth is attracted to the Duke, who, though physically unappealing, is bright and amusing. Ursula, who's often worked as a spy for Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham, is this time asked only to collect letters from a spy in France and pass them on. As they travel between several of Elizabeth's palaces and the homes of the Harrison family, Ursula and her trusted servants, Brockley and Dale, little suspect that the problems of the two families may have a common denominator. Another fascinating look at Elizabethan life that hinges on a complex mystery.

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