I love the Ursula Blanchard books. They are fun and quick little mysteries set in Elizabethan England. Usually they involve little pieces of history and characters from the history including Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Robert Dudley and William Cecil. Even though the mysteries are usually fairly easy to figure out they are just plain fun to read.

I enjoyed this book. It seemed to humanize this time in British history by using a mystery directly linked to events of Elizabeth's reign, particularly her concerns regarding what Mary Queen of Scots might do to unite Britain and Scotland with the Roman Church as their "one true" Church. The primary characters are well drawn, with only a few secondary seeming one dimensional.

Ursula Blanchard, half sister to the Queen and protagonist of this series is tasked by Sir William Cecil with a mission from the crown. She is to travel to the Yorkshire moors and visit Stonemoor House, the home of several Roman Catholic women who live there in a semi-protected status. The Crown knows they are there and tolerates their presence as long as they do not participate in any treasonous acts. They do however have a book for sale, a book that the Queen's advisor, Dr John Dee badly wants. Ursula accepts this task in spite of the possible risks. Others have gone before her and not been heard from since.

This is a very interesting story if, like me, you are interested in British history. It ties in with that period of vulnerability when Mary was plotting in Scotland and Elizabeth counter-plotting in England. I haven't read other books in this series but that didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this episode at all. There was enough background on major characters given to understand everything.
I do recommend this to readers of historical fiction and mysteries.

4*

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is a nicely put together Elizabethan mystery - not of the caliber of the Matthew Shardlake novels by C.J. Sansom, but definitely better than some of the other Ellis Peters acolytes out there.

Fiona Buckley sends Ursula Blanchard, emissary for Walsingham, in Heretic's Creed to deliver a message in Scotland and buy a medieval book on astronomy in England. Royal messengers are missing; a mysterious Catholic household of women may hold the answer to the disappearances and the location of the book. Well told Elizabethan mystery.

<http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=61798>

A curse, an heretical manuscript and mysterious disappearances!

An eerily haunting opening had me wondering for a while if I was venturing into a medieval horror novel. I wasn't! The prelude fittingly sets the scene for what is to come.
It's February, 1577. As winter still encloses Northern England and Scotland, Ursula Blanchard is sent on another mission by Sir William Cecil for the Crown. Her quest is two fold--to deliver missives to James Douglas, Earl of Morton, at Holyrood in Edinburgh concerning Queen Mary and conspiracies surrounding her; and to purchase an illuminated book, heretical in nature for Queen's magician, Doctor Dee. The relic is at Stonemoor House, an unofficial convent in the wilds of Yorkshire. Ursula is also tasked to delve into the disappearance of two men who went missing when undertaking the same requests. One of the men is her beloved friend Christopher Spelton.
Accompanying Ursula is her manservant Roger Brockley, his wife Dale, Ursula's tirewoman, and Gladys Morgan, a Welshwoman and herbalist.
The story takes us to the wintery slopes of Yorkshire and the moors, into a lonely manor house serving as an Abbey, inhabited by a group of Catholic women who practice their papist beliefs during Elizabeth's reign. As Cecil explains to Ursula, 'It isn’t illegal to be Catholic ... as long as there is no attempt at making converts.' Sir Francis Walsingham, who is fanatically anti-catholic has hitherto left the ladies alone, but he is aware of their practices and sees them as a means to rooting out Spanish papists come to England to cause dissent and disruption to the political landscape and to threaten the throne itself.
Ursula and her party find themselves stranded at Stonemoor House as the weather sets in surrounded by a group of pious women where trouble brews just below the surface. Abbess Philippa Gould appears to be an intelligent open minded woman, however her sister Bella is disturbed by the book she categories as 'evil'. She is very forth right about wanting it destroyed.
This journey has Ursula confronting some truths about herself and her needs that she has hitherto ignored.

A NetGalley ARC

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T’is a fair cop, methinks

Having a more than passing interest in history, especially the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, I enjoy historical fiction. But there are two kinds. Those works that adhere strongly to historical fact and create a fiction around those facts. And the others that use the period to create a fiction that uses facts with some degree of poetic licence. This novel falls into the latter.

Ursula Blanchard is the heroine of this novel and apparently there are several in the series. She is a thoroughly likeable character who is something of an Elizabethan Miss Marple. She is supposedly an illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII and sister to Queen Elizabeth I. Poetic licence!! Henry VIII was never discreet abut his dalliances, and his progeny, legitimate or otherwise, were many. He acknowledged only one of his illegitimate children, Henry Fitzroy , and we have no way of knowing whether all his issue were made public but I fancy that our intrepid Ursula is fictional. William Cecil and Francis Walsingham were advisors to Elizabeth I and appear in the book. The majority, if not all, of the other characters are authentically created for the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale as a good crime yarn. It used the period well to illustrate how crime detection was so much more difficult without the devices and techniques available today. It is well written with a good pace, not overlong with a sustained atmosphere and satisfying resolution . The characters are well drawn and serve their purpose within the narrative. Apart from Ursula herself I didn’t feel any real engagement but I don’t think I was supposed to.

I imagine that Ursula has a following who will be delighted with this story.

Whizz

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.