A Deadly Betrothal: An Elizabethan Mystery

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. [em](Aug.) [/em]