BOOKS
The Queen Of Subtleties
Lucy Cornwallis is Henry V111’s confectioner, the only woman in a kitchen staffed by two hundred men. She sculpts valuable sugar into ‘subtleties’, the centrepieces for royal celebrations, and keeps her head down in a court riven by intrigue. One day, she has an unusual visitor, someone curious to meet the creator of the famed sculptures: Mark Smeaton, singer and musician. Like Lucy, he is a talented commoner who has found royal favour. During a frenetic, troubled year at court – the final year of Anne’s Boleyn’s brief reign – they become close. Secretly, and oblivious to the sinister machinations within Henry’s circle, Lucy begins to build hopes of a future together, a life away from the kitchens.
Anne Boleyn’s rise has changed the history of England and she has made enemies of all but her favoured few, ‘her boys’. Politically astute, intensely ambitious and uncompromising, she had easily caught the youthful King’s heart, but powerful forces are now gathering to make her pay for her prize – and Lucy Cornwallis is unwittingly in danger of giving them the means to do so.