"One of the Best Books of 2016" - Open Letters Monthly; Finalist, 2016 Novel of the Year - Underground Book Reviews; Semi-Finalist - 2017 M.M. Bennetts Award

All Jane Seymour wants is a husband; but when she catches the eye of a volatile king, she is pulled deep into the Tudor court's realm of plot and intrigue....

England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency, and newfound poise are sure to finally attract a suitor.

Meanwhile, King Henry VIII is 45 and increasingly desperate for an heir. He changed his country's religion to leave his first wife, a princess of Spain, for Anne Boleyn -- but she too has failed to provide a son. As Henry begins to fear he is cursed, Jane Seymour's honesty and innocence conjure in him the hope of redemption.

Thomas Cromwell, an ambitious clerk whose political prowess keeps the King's changing desires satisfied, sees in Jane Seymour the perfect answer to the unrest threatening England: he engineers the plot that ends with Jane becoming the King's third wife. For Jane, who believes herself virtuous and her actions justified, miscarriages early in her marriage shake her confidence. How can a woman who has committed no wrong bear the guilt of how she unseated her predecessor?

One of Open Letters Review's Ten Best Historical Novels of 2020
"Highly recommend both as a standalone and series read. Wertman's work is among the best Tudor fiction on the market" - Historical Fiction Reader

His mother, Jane Seymour, died at his birth. Now his father, King Henry VIII, has died as well. Nine-year old Edward Tudor ascends to the throne of England and quickly learns that he cannot trust anyone, even himself.

Struggling to understand the political and religious turmoil that threatens the realm, Edward is at first relieved that his uncle, the new Duke of Somerset, will act on his behalf as Lord Protector, but this consolation evaporates as jealousy spreads through the court. Challengers arise on all sides to wrest control of the child king, and through him, England.

While Edward can bring frustratingly little direction to the Council's policies, he refuses to abandon his one firm conviction: that Catholicism has no place in England. When Edward falls ill, this steadfast belief threatens England's best hope for a smooth succession: the transfer of the throne to Edward's very Catholic half-sister, Mary Tudor, whose heart's desire is to return the realm to the way it worshipped in her mother's day.

First Place Winner, 2020 Chaucer Award for pre-1750s historical fiction
"The novel's sweeping historic detail and bewitching blend of rivalries and romances will dazzle devotees of Tudor England" - Publishers Weekly
After the tragic romance of Jane the Quene, this second book in the Seymour Saga takes a dark turn through an era in which King Henry VIII descends into cynicism, suspicion, and fits of madness – and in which mistakes mean death.

Edward Seymour’s future is uncertain. Although his sister Jane bore Henry the son he’d sought for twenty years, when she died in childbirth, Henry’s good nature died with her. Now the fiercely ambitious Edward must carve a difficult path through Henry’s shifting principles and wives. Challenged at every turn by his nemesis, Bishop Stephen Gardiner, Edward must embrace ruthlessness in order to safeguard not only his own future but England’s as well.

This is the account of Henry’s tumultuous reign as experienced by enemies whose fierce disputes over religion and common decency fuel epic struggles for the soul of the nation. And for power.

It's 1843 and the English nobleman Quinton Williams has come to Ireland to oversee the running of his father’s ailing estate and escape his painful past. Here he meets the alluring Alannah O’Neill, whose Irish family is one of few to have retained ownership of their land, the rest having been supplanted by the English over the course of the country's bloody history. Finding herself drawn to the handsome Englishman, Alannah offers to help Quin communicate with the estate’s Gaelic-speaking tenants, as much to assist him as to counter her own ennui. Aware of her controlling brother’s hostility towards the English, she keeps her growing relationship with Quin a secret – a secret that cannot, however, be kept for long from those who dream of ridding Ireland of her English oppressors.

Among the stark contrasts that separate the rich few from the plentiful poor, Under the Emerald Sky is a tale of love and betrayal in a land teetering on the brink of disaster - the Great Famine that would forever change the course of Ireland's history.

A group of archaeology students in northern England scrape at the soil near Hadrian’s Wall, once a barrier that divided Roman Britannia from wild Caledonian tribes.
Twenty-year-old Noah makes an intriguing find, but hasn't anticipated becoming the object of desire in a developing love triangle in the isolated academic community at Vindolanda. He is living his best life, but must learn to prioritise in a race against time to solve an astounding 2,000-year-old riddle, and an artefact theft, as he comes to realise his future career prospects depend on it.
In the same place, in the year 180 C.E., Centurion Gaius Atticianus, hungover and unaware of the bloody conflicts that will soon challenge him, is rattled by the hoot of an owl, a bad omen.
These are the protagonists whose lives will brush together in the alternating strands of this dual timeline historical novel, one trying to get himself noticed and the other trying to stay intact as he approaches retirement.
How will the breathless battles fought by a Roman officer influence the fortunes of a twenty-first century archaeology mud rat? Can naive Noah, distracted by the attentions of two very different women, work out who to trust?
Find out in Tim Walker's thrilling historical dual timeline novel, Guardians at the Wall.

The horrors of the First World War devastated many a Dublin family and the Brannigans weren’t spared. Struggling to get past their heartache, the family finds itself divided by both the rebellion against British rule and the wide Atlantic. Devoted matriarch Eda Brannigan witnesses her family unraveling. Sean and Molly make startling choices with potentially lethal consequences. Francis steeps in a drunken angry stupor. Young Brandon is so eerily quiet. Eda desperately wishes her beloved firstborn, Deirdre, wasn’t living so far away. But with a determined resolve, Eda soldiers on in her bustling pub, The Gallant Fusilier, where tragedy, triumph and even love unfold. Can this family endure the violence and intrigue of the Easter Rising, the bloody struggle for independence, and a bitter civil war?

South Boston-native Ned Tobin has all the luck. Alive after the Somme, now an officer, he meets, beds and falls in love with the alluring Adèle Chéreaux, a half-English lycée teacher who gives herself fully to Ned. Their love affair is suddenly upended in 1917 when Ned is called home and Adèle flees the last German advance of the First World War.

Harlem lawyer Chester Dawkins is a fine young man and a devoted brother. He dutifully joins a new regiment anxious to fight for their chance at valor in the face of deep-rooted racism. Meanwhile, his sister, Lena, is left at home to shoulder a crippling legacy of family debt.

Ned finds himself back in France with Chester’s regiment. Can these soldiers from very different backgrounds overcome long-held prejudices and find common cause in the bloody trenches? Will Ned ever find Adèle again? And what will become of Lena?

Journey through avant-garde Paris, Prohibition-era Harlem and newly independent Ireland in this heart-wrenching yet hopeful story of love and loss. Has Ned’s luck finally run out?

Fiery Deirdre Brannigan had opinions on everything. She certainly hated the very idea of war in 1914. Childhood pals Jack Oakley and Will Parsons thought it a grand adventure with their friends. But the crushing weight of her guilty conscience pushes Deirdre to leave Ireland and land directly in the fray. Meanwhile the five friends from Newfoundland blithely enlist. After all, the war couldn’t possibly last very long…

They learn quickly how wrong they are and each is torn apart by the carnage in France.

What began with enthusiastic dreams of parades and dances with handsome young soldiers turned into long days and nights in the hospital wards desperately trying to save lives. And for the good and decent young men in fine new uniforms aching to prove themselves worthy on the field of battle, the horrors of war quickly descended.

But it is also the war which brings them together. Deirdre’s path crosses with Jack and Will when they’re brought to her field hospital the first day of the slaughter on the Somme. Their lives part, their journeys forward fraught with physical and emotional scars tossing them through unexpected and often painful twists and turns. But somehow, a sliver of hope, love and redemption emerges. And their paths cross again in St. John’s.

When the guns finally fall silent, can Deirdre overcome her secret demons through a new life with battered Jack? Can shell-shocked Will confront his despotic father’s expectations to become the man his young family deserves?

She captured his heart, but at what price?

The long, bloody Civil War is finally at an end when Zee Mimms, the daughter of a Missouri preacher, is tasked with nursing her cousin, Jesse James, back to health after he suffers a near-fatal wound. During Jesse's long convalescence, the couple falls in love, but Jesse's resentment against the Federals runs deep. He has scores to settle.

For him, the war will never be over.

Zee is torn between deferring to her parents' wishes and marrying for security or marrying for love and accepting the hard realities of life with an outlaw--living under an assumed name and forever on the run.

For her, the choice she makes means the war is only beginning.
Discover why readers describe this richly imagined story of the woman who wed Jesse James as powerful, compelling, and emotional.

In the early 1900s, enjoying a luxurious existence and a social life of parties and balls, Sophie becomes engaged to the love of her life; a young doctor, Anatoly Andropov. The outbreak of the Great War means that their marriage is earlier than planned and Tolya goes to serve in a field hospital on the eastern front.

Sophie, bored and lonely at home, leaves to join him as a nurse. Later she gives birth to a baby boy and, when expecting her second child, conditions compel her to return to her home city, now named Petrograd.

Petrograd becomes the epicentre of the greatest upheaval in Russian history where the Tsar is overthrown and socialist revolutionaries take over the government. During the months and years that follow, the socialist revolution and a bitter Civil War play out amidst uncertainty, lethal danger and brutal violence. Sophie’s family flee to England, to safety, but even that escape is marked with tragedy.

Sophie remains in Petrograd with her children to wait Tolya’s return. Conditions in the city deteriorate, threatening her little family with starvation and disease. Sophie endures endless struggles at home and at work in a state hospital with the fate of her husband always on her mind. Where is he? Is he even alive? Serious illness and the fragile health of her children drive her to join her family in England where she hears the worst news possible which forces her to return alone to Russia to embark on a dangerous quest.

This sweeping novel of love and loss will transport the reader from tsarist Russia in 1913, through the Great War, the Russian Revolution and Civil War to 1922, finally portraying the life of Russian émigrés in England.

‘Murders in the Blitz’ series is a gripping murder mystery. It is perfect for fans of Philip Kerr and Alan Furst.

Praise for Julia Underwood:

'A real page-tuner, which captures the atmosphere of WWII London perfectly.' - Robert Foster, best-selling author of 'The Lunar Code'.

Julia Underwood is also the best-selling author of 'War's Last Dance'.

Berlin, 1946. The war is over.

But there are still battles to be won before the players can pack up and go home. After five years apart Bill and Isabel are re-united in a devastated Berlin. Struggling to find a place for herself in the war-torn city, Isabel doesn't find it easy to fall back into a family routine with Bill. As they struggle to rediscover their love for each other they encounter unexpected dangers.

Their four-year old daughter is mysteriously abducted, disappearing without a trace. No one knows where she has gone. Or why she has disappeared. Isabel must drawn on hidden strengths and loyalties as she throws herself into a desperate search for her daughter.

Will she manage to bring her family back together before it is too late? Or will Isabel have to build a new life for herself - rising like a phoenix out of the ashes of war?

War's Last Dance is a compelling drama of marriage, family and war. It is perfect for fans of Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd.