The King's Witch Trilogy

In March of 1603, as she helps to nurse the dying Queen Elizabeth of England, Frances Gorges dreams of her parents’ country estate, where she has learned to use flowers and herbs to become a much-loved healer. She is happy to stay at home when King James of Scotland succeeds to the throne. His court may be shockingly decadent, but his intolerant Puritanism sees witchcraft in many of the old customs - punishable by death.

As she helps to nurse the dying Queen Elizabeth, Frances Gorges longs for the fields and ancient woods of her parents' Hampshire estate, where she has learned to use the flowers and herbs to become a much-loved healer. Frances is happy to stay in her beloved countryside when the new King arrives from Scotland, bringing change, fear and suspicion. His court may be shockingly decadent, but James' religion is Puritan, intolerant of all the old ways.

But if her torturers at the court of King James knew of her love for Tom Wintour, one of the executed members of the gunpowder plot, it would mean certain death. Pregnant with Tom's child, hiding under the reluctant protection of her spiteful and ambitious brother, Frances lives in fear - until she is offered the chance to make a respectable - if loveless - marriage and return to court. She will not be expected to sleep with her husband. The only price she must pay for safety is to give up the cause for which her lover died.

Frances Gorges seems destined to be happy at last. King James has apparently lost his appetite for hunting witches, so the medical skills and herbal knowledge that saw Frances accused of witchcraft no longer seem to hang over her like a death sentence. The king would rather be hunting stag and boar - and Frances' beloved husband, Thomas, is firmly established in the royal household as the Master of Buckhounds. Their family is growing and their estates are secure. But life at court is never without intrigue, jealousy and danger for long, and a new arrival turns the world upside down.