Alison Weir our pre-eminent popular historian has now fulfilled a life's ambition to write historical fiction She has chosen as her subject the bravest most sympathetic & wronged heroine of Tudor England Lady Jane Grey Lady Jane Grey was born into times of extreme danger Child of a scheming father & a ruthless mother for whom she was merely a pawn in a dynastic power game with the highest stakes she lived a life in thrall to political machinations & lethal religious fervour Jane's astonishing & essentially tragic story was played out during one of the most momentous periods of English history As a great-niece of Henry VIII & the cousin of Edward VI Mary I & Elizabeth I she grew up to realize that she could never throw off the chains of her destiny Her honesty intelligence & strength of character carry the reader through all the vicious twists of Tudor power politics to her nine-day reign & its unbearably poignant conclusion