Amazon Category:  Historical Fiction Publisher: Two Bridges Press ISBN-10:  0972394710 Pages: 260 Copyright: August, 2006 ISBN-13: 9780972394710 Filled with the intrigue and pageantry of Tudor England, The Secret Lion is the first book in The Spymaster Chronicles. This book contains a special Readers Group Guide In this rousing historical adventure set in the Tudor court, we are swept back to the final days of Edward VI's reign, and a time of danger, deceit, and courage. Brendan Prescott, a foundling reared in Dudley household, arrives at court to serve as a squire to the arrogant Lord Robert Dudley. Keen and ambitious, Brendan hopes to gain advancement in his new post - until Lord Robert dispatches him on an illicit mission to the King's enigmatic sister, the Princess Elizabeth, and Brendan discovers that nothing in his world is as it appears. A dark plot brews around Elizabeth's quest to unravel the truth about her brother King Edward VI's disappearance. Lured into her service as a spy, with only a bold stable boy and audacious lady-in-waiting at his side, Brendan plunges into a ruthless gambit of half-truths and lies, pitted against the wiles of a vengeful opponent who may hold the secret of his own mysterious birth - a secret that could shatter everything he believes in, and cast an inescapable shadow over him, Elizabeth, and the future of England itself. Filled with the intrigue and pageantry of Tudor England, The Secret Lion is the first book in The Spymaster Chronicles. This new edition features the Two Bridges Press Reader's Group Guide.   Excerpt Excerpted from The Secret Lion by Christopher Gortner. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1602: Everyone has a secret. Like the oyster with its grain of sand, we bury it deep within, coating it with opalescent layers as if that could heal our mortal wound. Some of us devote our entire lives to keeping our secret hidden, safe from those who might pry it from us, hoarding it like the pearl, only to discover that it escapes us when we least expect it, revealed by a flash of fear in our eyes when caught unawares, by a sudden pain, a rage or hatred, or an all-consuming shame. I know all about secrets. Secrets upon secrets, wielded like weapons, like tethers, like bedside endearments. The truth alone can never suffice. Secrets are the coin of our world, the currency upon which we construct our edifice of grandeur and lies. We need our secrets to serve as iron for our shields, brocade for our bodies, and veils for our fears— they delude and comfort, shielding us always from the fact that in the end we, too, must die. "Write it all down," she tells me, "every last word." We often sit like this in the winter of our lives, chronic insomniacs in outdated finery, the chessboard or the game of cards neglected on the table, as her eyes— alert and ever-wary after all these years, still leonine in a face grown gaunt with age— turn inward to that place where none has ever trespassed, to her own secret, which I now know, have perhaps always known, she must take with her to her grave. "Write it down," she says, "so that when I am gone, you will remember." As if I could ever forget . . .

Historical Novels Review
Captures Tudor glamour and depravity. . . No other series has pulled together intrigue, politics, and pageantry in such a delightful package.


Tahoe Daily Tribune
Holds a dark mirror to our society . . .The intertwining of facts and fiction make for a fascinating read.


The BookWoman
A haunting secret, terrifying vengeance, and action-packed adventure . . . this is historical suspense at its finest!