A queen, a secret, and a family that is willing to do anything to protect it's community.

Don't miss an exciting adventure of one woman's journey to uncover the truth surrounding her father's death and a love that will surprise her giving the ultimate happiness she's ever known.

An historical romance full of adventure and romance.

This historical romance novella is set during the reign of Bloody Mary in England and follows a very distraught Catherine who is desperate to find out the truth behind her fathers death. During a trip to his graveside, she meets Sir Brandon also visiting her late father. In conversation she realizes he was one of her father’s closest friends. She recruits him to help her seek out the truth behind his sudden death. She doesn’t believe the story she is being told and wants to find out what really happened.

It is a very quick read but still packed so much character and story into it. From the action packed, tense nail-biting moments to the romance that ensues between Catherine and Brand, this quick read will pull you in like it did me. What really did happen to her father? Can they uncover the truth without loosing their own lives? Read to find out!

This is a historical romance set in the days of “Bloody Mary's” reign. Lady Catherine Linwood is the daughter of an esteemed physician, and is favored by the queen, until her father dies suddenly.

Catherine is immediately suspicious of the alleged cause of death. When she meets Sir Brandon FitzAlan, a bastard Knight, a man indebted to Catherine's father for his medical treatment of his mother, the two work together to figure out what really happened to Catherine's father, and end up falling hard and fast for each other. However, they may not live long enough to have their happy ending…
All in all in was a good read, very entertaining, and the love story was really well developed. I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

I liked the book but at times felt the writing was choppy. I felt more detail could have been added to understand the authors intent

Basic Stats.
Set in London, March 1558 (royal court)
Heroine: Catherine Linwood (20), only child of Her Majesty's favorite doctor, Arthur Linwood
Hero: Sir Brandon FitzAlan (almost 30), bastard of Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel

Review. Had to DNF this book about 1/3 of the way through for two main reasons:

1) The heroine was annoying and had way too much TSTL in her. Both she and the hero were very generic and flat, and I couldn't really muster much interest in either of them. She is annoyingly naive and kind of stupid, and he's the standard illegitimate son who's super good-looking and trying to make it ahead even though he has to contend with the issues of his parentage blah blah blah.

2) Really got annoyed by the insta-lust between the hero and heroine. The first time they meet, when she's sitting with her father's coffin and he comes to pay his respects, they start lusting for each other ... I don't know, call me old-fashioned, but I feel like there's a time and place for those things lol. At one point, they're in mortal danger, being searched for by everyone and victims of some apparent massive conspiracy (don't know, didn't finish it), and all the hero can think about is her "unfettered breasts ... bobbing under the nightgown." I mean, come on.

So. Yeah. Lol—as you can tell, the book really didn't draw me in and I couldn't wait for it to finish. I finally decided to DNF it, which I've been doing increasingly these days with books I can't get into, because there is too little time and far too many books—why waste it on one you're not enjoying?

Author. This was my first book by Nicola Davidson and the writing itself was decent, so I would definitely give her another chance. I just checked, and already had two of her other books on my TBR list— His Forbidden Lady and A Midsummer Night's Kiss , an anthology that has one of her short stories—so I will check those out, and hopefully enjoy them more than this one.

*This review is of an ARC provided by Net Galley and the publisher