Ann Swinfen

It is December, 1648, and England faces one of the greatest crises in its history. In Parliament, former allies are torn apart after six years of bloody conflict....

An agent sent to Muscovy to investigate suspected treason amongst employees of the Muscovy Company has disappeared without trace on the way to Astrakhan....

In Elizabethan London, no child is safe. Children are misused and exploited by parents, masters, strangers, and society at large. Even the children of the rich are in danger....

When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning....

When Nicholas Elyot and his friends set out to spend the Christmas season in the country, they are prepared for a hard journey in winter weather. They are also wary of violence on the road, for these are troubled times after the Great Pestilence, when bands of dispossessed and desperate....

Facing the threat of King Philip's Enterprise of England - Spanish invasion and annexation of the country - Sir Francis Walsingham's secret service spreads a network of agents across Europe....

When Bartholomew Fair is threatened in 1589 by 500 armed soldiers dismissed from service without pay, the authorities act swiftly and decisively to prevent trouble....

The year after defeating the Spanish Armada, England retaliates. The expedition to Portugal sets out to destroy what remains of Spain's Atlantic fleet....

When the novice Emma Thorgold goes missing from Godstow Abbey in the summer of 1353, the hunt is on throughout the Oxfordshire countryside....

St. Frideswide's Fair is a great annual event in Oxford, bringing together merchants and buyers from all over England and Wales, and from as far away as Flanders and France....

When a deer hunt in Wychwood ends in tragedy, suspicion is directed toward the huntsman, a boyhood friend of Nicholas....

It is the year 1586. England is awash with traitors, plotting to assassinate the Queen and bring about a foreign invasion....

Kit Alvarez undertakes paid work as a copyist with James Burbage's company. But the players' companies find themselves under threat. Two of Burbage's men are murdered. One of Henslowe's men is attacked. And two important new plays go missing....

Oxford, Spring - 1354. When a series of accidents to the building of the chapel at Queen’s College begin, they do not appear a cause for concern, but they grow more serious, and stonemasons are injured. Nicholas Elyot becomes involved after it is learned that an intruder has appeared....

The Testament of Mariam takes us into the turbulent world of rebellious Galilee under Roman occupation, and the courageous lives that altered the course of history....