Watch the Lady is the mesmerizing story of Lady Penelope Devereux—the daring young beauty in the Tudor court who inspired Sir Philip Sidney’s famous sonnets even while she plotted against Queen Elizabeth. Penelope Devereux arrives at Queen Elizabeth’s court where she & her brother the Earl of Essex are drawn into the aging Queen’s favour. Young & naïve Penelope though promised elsewhere falls in love with Philip Sidney who pours his heartbreak into the now classic sonnet series Astrophil & Stella. But Penelope is soon married off to a man who loathes her. Never fainthearted she chooses her moment & strikes a deal with her husband: after she gives birth to two sons she will be free to live as she chooses with whom she chooses. But she is to discover that the course of true love is never smooth. Meanwhile Robert Cecil ever loyal to Elizabeth has his eye on Penelope & her brother. Although it seems the Earl of Essex can do no wrong in the eyes of the Queen as his influence grows so his enemies gather. Penelope must draw on all her political savvy to save her brother from his own ballooning ambition & Cecil’s trap while daring to plan for an event it is treason even to think about. Unfolding over the course of two decades & told from the perspectives of Penelope & her greatest enemy the devious politician Cecil Watch the Lady chronicles the last gasps of Elizabeth’s reign & the deadly scramble for power in a dying dynasty. Key
Features:560 pages Hardback Published in 2015