Queen’s Bounty: A Tudor Mystery Featuring Ursula Blanchard

Buckley’s well-paced 10th Tudor mystery featuring Ursula Blanchard (after Queen Without a Crown) finds Ursula, former lady-in-waiting and half-sister to Elizabeth I, happily married to her third husband, Hugh Stannard, and preparing for her daughter’s wedding. Then she receives an unsettling letter from Anne Percy, the countess of Northumberland, a Mary Stuart supporter now living in exile in the Netherlands. Anne accuses Ursula and her manservant, Brockley, of destroying “both my hopes and my dignity,” and vows vengeance. Hugh and Brockley, whom Anne suggests is Ursula’s lover, try to reassure Ursula that Anne can do her no harm, but soon a plague of troubles descends on their Surrey household. Accidental mishaps prove to be the work of a devious villain. When Ursula is accused of witchcraft, she must expose this villain to save herself from the hangman’s noose. Fans of Elizabethan historicals will be richly rewarded. (Aug.)