THE JUDAS PLEDGE is one of my early books and has always sold steadily.
The story is set around the short but violent reign of Queen Mary I of England, known for all time as Bloody Mary because of the nearly 400 protestants she had burned alive for heresy.
It is 1553 and for five years the fifteen year old protestant King Edward VI has reigned with the aid of a Lord Protector. It has been twenty years since King Henry VIII broke away from the yoke of the Roman church and Catholicism is outlawed and a thing of the past.
Bethany is the daughter of a wealthy merchant and her only concern is to avoid an arranged marriage to the impoverished baron her father had found to marry her for her dowry.
When the wealthy Earl of Summerville suggests a marriage which will make her a very rich countess she is thrilled and his confession that he is a hated catholic and that he expects her to be the same, means little. If Bethany had thought about it at all, she had believed that there were no Catholics left in England. Her eyes firmly fixed on a handsome, amiable husband and the title, wealth and huge country mansion that comes with him, she believes she will never have to adhere to that condition, she believes that there will never be another catholic monarch, despite his assurances that the catholic Mary Tudor will succeed her brother to the throne.
She has no idea how hard it is going to be to keep that pledge when Mary gains the throne and begins a brutal campaign to bring England back to the Catholic church of Rome. As Bethany's protestant family and friends are persecuted for their beliefs, beliefs for which they are prepared to die a horrible death, she finds the struggle to support her Catholic husband and give lip service to his faith to be impossible despite having fallen deeply in love with him.
This is a tale of love, passion and betrayal in an age when God is a very real part of everyday life and the way he is worshipped worth of dying for.
Bethany is the daughter of a wealthy merchant and her only concern is to avoid an arranged marriage to the impoverished baron her father had found to marry her for her dowry.
When the wealthy Earl of Summerville suggests a marriage which will make her a very rich countess she is thrilled and his confession that he is a hated catholic and that he expects her to be the same, means little. If Bethany had thought about it at all, she had believed that there were no Catholics left in England. Her eyes firmly fixed on a handsome, amiable husband and the title, wealth and huge country mansion that comes with him, she believes she will never have to adhere to that condition, she believes that there will never be another catholic monarch, despite his assurances that the catholic Mary Tudor will succeed her brother to the throne.
She has no idea how hard it is going to be to keep that pledge when Mary gains the throne and begins a brutal campaign to bring England back to the Catholic church of Rome. As Bethany's protestant family and friends are persecuted for their beliefs, beliefs for which they are prepared to die a horrible death, she finds the struggle to support her Catholic husband and give lip service to his faith to be impossible despite having fallen deeply in love with him.
This is a tale of love, passion and betrayal in an age when God is a very real part of everyday life and the way he is worshipped worth of dying for.
This book has received some good reviews from both sides of the Atlantic and it is going on sale on the 14th November at 99 cents or pence if you are in the UK, for just 7 days.
This is book one of the Summerville Journals; book two is The Flawed Mistress which is the story of Rachel, Richard Summerville's beautiful mistress.
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