The Sister Queens

by Justin Scott

Overview

Two rival queens. History's greatest playwright. And a deadly plot for the crown.

London, 1600. With no legitimate heir to Queen Elizabeth's throne, and no clear successor with her modern vision of a civilization that thrives in peace and diversity, England is in a supremely perilous moment.

Elizabeth's foes understand the power of a poet's voice to shape popular opinion, and force esteemed playwright William Shakespeare to write a script detailing the history of Queen Elizabeth and the catholic Mary Queen of Scots that will tumble the nation into civil war. Faced with a terrible dilemma, Will must navigate a dangerous path through the corridors of the wealthy, the refuse-filled warrens of London and the byzantine world of Elizabethan politics as he tries to save both his family and his own legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448312740
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	02/06/2024
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	525,808
Product dimensions:	5.79(w) x 8.74(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Justin Scott has made his living for fifty years writing historical suspense novels, thrillers, and sea stories. Born in Manhattan, he grew up on Long Island's Great South Bay in a family of professional writers. Justin is an Eagle Scout, holds BA and MA degrees in history, and before becoming a writer, drove boats and trucks, helped build Fire Island beach houses, edited an electronic engineering journal, and tended bar in a Hell's Kitchen saloon. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, filmmaker Amber Edwards.

Editorial Reviews

Meticulously researched . . . Scott is well known for writing popular historical thrillers, and his latest doesn’t disappoint

Booklist

2023-11-04
The intrigue swirling around Queen Elizabeth I and her long-dead cousin Mary Queen of Scots envelops William Shakespeare, who’s pressed to write a play that’s guaranteed to make a bad situation worse.

Anthony Bacon, spymaster to the Earl of Essex, snatches Will from a London street to make him an offer he can’t refuse. Either Will writes The Sister Queens, a new play that barely fictionalizes the rivalry between Elizabeth and the kinswoman she had executed, or Bacon will call out Will’s mother, Mary Arden Shakespeare, who’s never renounced her Catholicism. The plot twist Bacon insists on is that Mary never plotted treason against the Queen; she was falsely accused on the basis of trumped-up evidence. The play, which Will can hardly decline to write, will surely bring the unnerving partisanship of 1600 England to a full boil. So even as he works on The Sister Queens, he makes every effort to identify the power behind Bacon who’s making this foolhardy demand. Is it the spymaster’s brother, Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary Francis Bacon, or Essex himself, or possibly even Will’s patron, the Earl of Southampton? Will is haunted at every turn by the spirit of Father Valente, an unrepentant Jesuit friend who’s been hanged at Tyburn prison. Now if only Father Val could tell him the identity of the prime mover of this dastardly plot, or even what corner of Will’s world was likely to produce the next threat to his life and his peace of mind. Veteran Scott crams in enough historical detail for a miniseries before identifying a mastermind who’s likely to leave readers as shocked as Will is.

Highly recommended for readers disgusted with contemporary politics. Yes, things have been worse.

Kirkus Reviews