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At the Mercy of the Queen by Anne Clinard Barnhill
St. Martin's Press
$14.99, paperback
ISBN: 978-0312662134
January, 2012
Historical Fiction
Available wherever books are sold and at Amazon.com
A sweeping tale of sexual seduction and intrigue at the court of Henry VIII, At the Mercy of the Queen is a rich and dramatic debut historical about Madge Shelton, cousin and lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn.
At the innocent age of fifteen, Lady Margaret Shelton arrives at the court of Henry VIII and quickly becomes the confidante of her cousin, Queen Anne Boleyn. But she soon finds herself drawn into the perilous web of Anne’s ambition.
Desperate to hold onto the king’s waning affection, Anne schemes to have him take her guileless young cousin as mistress, ensuring her husband’s new paramour will owe her loyalty to the queen. But Margaret has fallen deeply in love with a handsome young courtier. She is faced with a terrible dilemma: give herself to the king and betray the love of her life or refuse to become his mistress and jeopardize the life of the her cousin, Queen Anne.
Anne Clinard Barnhill is the author of two books: What You Long For (Main Street Rag, 2009—short-story collection) and At Home in the Land of Oz: Autism, My Sister, and Me (Jessica Kingsley, 2007—memoir). Her articles and short stories have appeared in a variety of newspapers, literary anthologies, and magazines. Her work has won various awards and grants. Barnhill holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UNC-Wilmington. Her poetry chapbook, Coal, Baby, will also appear in early 2012 from Finishing Line Press. She will serve as the final judge for the 2012 Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Competition, sponsored by the North Carolina Writers' Network.
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