Bøger af Ann Swinfen

Oxford, Spring 1354 When the series of accidents to the building of the chapel at Queen's College begins, they do not appear a cause for concern, but they grow more serious, and stonemasons are injured. Nicholas Elyot becomes involved after it is discovered that an intruder has reached the college by way of his garden. When Jordain Brinkylsworth's youngest student goes missing, it seems at first that his disappearance is unconnected, yet he is one of the 'poor boys' supported by Queen's. Surely this serious and studious boy cannot be responsible for the troubles? And then someone is killed.

When Nicholas Elyot and his friends set out to spend the Christmas season in the country, they are prepared for a hard journey in winter weather. They are also wary of violence on the road, for these are troubled times after the Great Pestilence, when bands of dispossessed and desperate men roam the countryside of England. It is not surprising, therefore, when the troubadours hired to provide entertainment at Leighton Manor are attacked in Wychwood. Yet why should this insignificant group draw the attention of outlaws, who are searching for something? Is one of the troubadours not quite what he seems?

Oxford, Autumn 1353 St Frideswide's Fair is a great annual event in Oxford, bringing together merchants and buyers from all over England and Wales, and from as far away as Flanders and France. Yet the earnings from the fair, granted to the Priory of St Frideswide centuries before, are resented by the town, and resentment can turn to violence. Under the unscrupulous Prior de Hungerford, even more trouble is brewing. Nicholas Elyot is warned by intelligencer Alice Walsea that attendance at the fair may be used for something more sinister, and not all French merchants may be innocent. When a merchant from Flanders is attacked and an English traitor is murdered, can Nicholas disentangle the crimes hidden under cover of the fair?

Oxford, Late Summer 1353. On hearing that his cousin is short-handed for the harvest, Nicholas Elyot takes a group of friends back to the family farm to help. When a deer hunt in Wychwood ends in tragedy, suspicion is directed toward the huntsman, a boyhood friend of Nicholas. Yet the victim has made many other enemies, any one of whom could have shot the fatal arrow. Can Nicholas uncover the real killer before it is too late?

When Kit Alvarez returns from Muscovy, it is to discover that her post as physician at St Thomas's hospital has been given to another. Trying to eke out the small income she earns from some of Dr Nuñez's private patients, she undertakes paid work as a copyist with James Burbage's company. But the players' companies find themselves under threat. Two of Burbage's men are murdered. One of Henslowe's men is attacked. And two important new plays go missing, one by Will Shakespeare and one by Christopher Marlowe. Are the thefts merely the work of a jealous unlicensed company? Or is there a conspiracy afoot to use the plays in some more dangerous game?

In Elizabethan London, no child is safe. Children are misused and exploited by parents, masters, strangers, and society at large. Even the children of the rich are in danger. When a five-year-old heiress to great estates is kidnapped, Christoval Alvarez, the players of James Burbage's company, and a disreputable group of child beggars all become involved in the search. At Seething Lane, matters are approaching a crisis. Sir Francis Walsingham is dying and, as Thomas Phelippes struggles to hold the intelligence service together, he receives information that another attack on the Queen is planned. The identity of the assassin is unknown, but Phelippes does know the place and the date - Whitehall Palace on the day of the Twelfth Night Revels.

Tirza Libby, a respected and successful war photographer, tries to escape her past by retreating to a remote Scottish island. But even thousands of miles and four decades cannot erase the memories of a childhood summer in Maine: a community profoundly altered by war, a family thrown into conflict, and the British airman who changed all their lives. This is the story of that fateful summer. Only by revisiting Maine can Tirza solve the mysteries of that past and complete her journey of self-discovery. In its lyrical portrayal of a courageous but fragile way of life, A Running Tide gathers in force and tension as it moves towards tragedy and ultimate resolution.

The year after defeating the Spanish Armada, England retaliates. The expedition to Portugal sets out to destroy what remains of Spain's Atlantic fleet, drive the Spanish out of Portugal, put the claimant Dom Antonio of Aviz on the throne, and seize the Azores. But from the time the English fleet, led by Drake and Norreys, reaches Plymouth, things start to go wrong. Christoval Alvarez, sent to carry out two missions by Walsingham, has a more important private plan in mind. Are any members of the family still alive? And what will become of the disaster-ridden expedition?

'Today I had word that my brother Ya'aqôb is dead.' When this news reaches Mariam, living in exile in the province of Gaul, memories of her girlhood in faraway Palestine are painfully awakened. For years she has blocked them from her mind, but as illness and old age overtake her, she begins to relive the time when she defied all propriety and convention and followed her charismatic brother Yeshûa and her betrothed Yehûdâ in their daring but perilous adventure. 'We were young. We were going to change the world.' Mariam shared the excitement, the fear and the mystery of the mission, but cannot forget the horror of its ending. With powerful resonances for today, The Testament of Mariam takes us into the turbulent world of rebellious Galilee under Roman occupation, and the courageous lives that altered the course of history.

It is the year 1586. England is awash with traitors, plotting to assassinate the Queen and bring about a foreign invasion. The young physician Christoval Alvarez, a refugee from the horrors of the Portuguese Inquisition, is coerced into becoming a code-breaker and agent in Sir Francis Walsingham's secret service. In the race to thwart the plot, who will triumph - the ruthless conspirators or the equally ruthless State?

Sofia Niklai, a reclusive exile, and Kate Milburn, locked in a stifling marriage, form a tentative friendship on a windswept beach in Northumbria. While Sofia forces herself to confront her father's diaries, Kate must face half-remembered shadows from her childhood. Together they make an impulsive journey to Hungary, Sofia's homeland. It is a journey from which neither can return unaltered. Their meeting in Hungary with István Rudnay, also marked by the dark experiences of his youth, leads them to a discovery of the warmth and love so lacking in their own lives, whilst he in turn comes to a reconciliation with the past and hope for the future. Sharply observed and recounted with tenderness and wisdom, The Travellers delineates the intense joys and sorrows of individual lives upon a broad canvas of recent European history.

It is June 11th 1994 in the depths of Herefordshire and Natasha Devereux's family and two hundred guests gather together to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of St Martins. From the vision of one woman who fled Bolshevik Russia and opened her doors to artists, musicians, writers, and refugees from war-torn Europe, it has become a sanctuary for generations of her family. Over the course of one day they face marital crisis, impending birth, teenage trauma, a father's roving eye, momentous news from the past, communal financial crisis, and a lost love from the summer of 1957.

Violence, greed and betrayal threaten the remote communities of East Anglia in the seventeenth century, when ruthless and unscrupulous speculators steal their common lands, while fanatic Puritans bring accusations of heresy and witchcraft. Granddaughter of a local hero, Mercy Bennington moves out of the shadow of her elder brother to become a leader of the protestors, finding the strength to confront the enemies who endanger the survival of her village and her own life. Yet the violence wreaked upon the fragile fenlands unleashes a force no one can control - flood.

It is December, 1648, and England faces one of the greatest crises in its history. Bands of renegade soldiers and broken men roam the countryside, looting, burning and raping. In Parliament, former allies are torn apart after six years of bloody conflict. Will there be peace instead of war, or a military take-over of the country? John Swynfen, a rising young MP and one of the leaders of the moderate party, is working for peace, but only if safeguards can be established to protect Parliament and control the powers of the king. Ranged against him and his friends are Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton, intent on seizing power by the sword and destroying not only the monarchy but the elected government. Within a few weeks, London is occupied by Cromwell's army, parliamentary government is in ruins, the king is executed. And John Swynfen is a prisoner. Anne Swynfen travels home from Westminster to Staffordshire with her young children through a desperate winter. There, uncertain whether she will ever see her husband again, she takes charge of the large estate, where starvation looms due to bad harvests, and violent danger threatens from outlaws and the armies of both sides. While she struggles against prejudice to do a man's job, John is shot, beaten, shackled, humiliated and tortured. Tempted by golden promises if he recants, threatened with death if he does not, he tries to cling to his sanity and his beliefs. When he finally escapes, he begins a terrible journey home across war-torn England to find his wife. This is a story about keeping faith - many kinds of faith - in the face of terror, anguish and despair.

When Bartholomew Fair, London's largest public festival, is threatened in 1589 by five hundred armed soldiers dismissed from service without pay, the authorities act swiftly and decisively to prevent trouble. Yet other trouble is brewing. Young physician and code-breaker Christoval Alvarez stumbles upon a sinister troupe of Italian puppeteers bent on making mischief, but it soon becomes apparent that more than mischief is in the air. Sir Francis Walsingham's agents are baffled by the ill-assorted conspirators, including one of their own men. Time is running out, and a missing cache of gunpowder cannot be found . . .

When the violent arrest of an innocent apprentice sparks a riot in Southwark during the summer of 1592, more lies behind it than a simple grievance. Increasing poverty, vagrancy, and crime in a restless London compel a nervous Privy Council to close the playhouses, forcing Lord Strange's Men to go on tour, while hostility to foreign refugees, aggravated by Marlowe's play, The Jew of Malta, adds to the danger on the streets for Strangers like Kit Alvarez. Other dangers are more subtle. The ensnaring of young men by illegal loan sharks and the circulation of damning accusations, both public and private, increase the atmosphere of fear and distrust which permeates a city threatened by twin evils - death of the body from plague, death of the soul from heresy. The performance of the new play of Dr Faustus seems prophetic when it is followed by 'a great reckoning in a little room'.

An agent sent to Muscovy to investigate suspected treason amongst employees of the Muscovy Company has disappeared without trace on the way to Astrakhan. Sir Francis Walsingham, who began the investigation, is dead, but the directors of the Company know that the agent must be found, dead or alive. The perfect opportunity comes when the Tsar, Emperor of All the Russias, asks for an English physician to treat his young half brother. Christoval Alvarez, physician and former Walsingham agent, is the obvious choice, but is loathe to travel to this violent and barbarous land. However, there is no withstanding some of the most powerful men in England, so Kit is soon on the way to Muscovy, facing storms, attack by pirates, and a fearsome Russian winter. The search for the missing agent is fraught with danger, but Kit is soon also caught up in the murderous world of Muscovy politics. To enter the realm of the Tsar is difficult. To escape may be impossible.

Facing the threat of King Philip's Enterprise of England - Spanish invasion and annexation of the country - Sir Francis Walsingham's secret service spreads a network of agents across Europe. After caring for hundreds of maimed and wounded soldiers returning from the fall of Sluys, young physician and code-breaker Christoval Alvarez is sent on two dangerous missions to Amsterdam, where, amongst the friendly Hollanders, treason and treachery lurks. Christoval's ship, sailing home, plays its part in the great sea battle in which the small and inexperienced English navy must confront the most powerful sea force in the world.

"Oxford, Spring 1353. When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning. Soon, however, Nicholas finds evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his scholar friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William's death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot. When their investigations begin to involve town, university, and abbey, Nicholas takes a risky gamble, and puts his family in terrible danger"--

"When the novice Emma Thorgold goes missing from Godstow Abbey in the summer of 1353, the hunt is on throughout the Oxfordshire countryside. Bookseller Nicholas Elyot and scholar Jordain Brinkylsworth are anxious to help the girl, but her stepfather has other intentions. Why is he so determined to shut her away for life? Or worse? And will she be found unharmed?"--Back cover.

In 1648, the coldest year in living memory, Mercy Bennington and her neighbours struggle to rebuild their lives after the disastrous man-made flood, but the mysterious speculators are still bent on seizing their lands. The local magnate promises to help, but does nothing. Mercy's brother Tom, crippled in the earlier attacks on the Fens, returns to Gray's Inn in London, but his legal studies are not his only goal. Somewhere in London there must exist a copy of the ancient charter granting ownership of the common land to the fenlanders, provided that Tom can find it before his enemies have the chance to kill him.

The death of a scholar, the birth of a detective...Oxford, Spring 1353. When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of William Farringdon floating in the River Cherwell, all the signs point to suicide. Soon, however, Nicholas discovers evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his close friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William's death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot. When their investigations begin to involve town, university, and abbey, Nicholas takes a risky gamble - and puts his family in terrible danger in order to uncover the truth. A thrilling historical mystery full of twists and intrigue, perfect for fans of Ellis Peters, Paul Doherty and E. M. Powell.