After Mary by Katharine McMahon

Seventeenth-century England is a turbulent country, rife with treachery and violence, where persecuted Catholics flee for their lives, mass is said secretly in attic rooms and a plot is hatched to kill the King.

In London, young Isabel Stanhope leads a double life. Her father, a favoured courtier of James I, expects her to marry a distant cousin, the gloriously elusive Francis Bourne. But during the tense summer of 1605, Isabel is sent to stay with her devoutly Catholic grandmother. One morning, she witnesses the arrival of a stranger, the charismatic priest Peter Carisbroke, and falls immediately under his spell.

Isabel - torn between duty and a young woman's passionate, but forbidden, longing - struggles to make her choice. Eager for experience and love, she sets out on a journey which takes her from the temptations of Jacobean London to a Europe torn apart by war. But has Isabel made the right decision? Has she really followed her heart?

In this sumptuous, enthralling novel, Katharine McMahon portrays a fascinating world of self-sacrifice, betrayal and intrigue, where the consequences of love turn life upside-down.