Overview

"Love is an illusion" - declares the queen. But who is being deceived?

Details

Certainly not sober, scholarly Frances Randolph. She is much too careful. She has witnessed the devastating aftermath of her younger sister’s elopement and has her father’s words of advice to guide her. When first one man and then another makes a play for her well-guarded heart, she is cautious, forgetting that for some, seduction is a game at which they excel.

Amidst a whirl of entertainments Frances is drawn into a new circle of acquaintances whose lives at the court of the elderly Elizabeth I seem incredibly glamorous. But this world is one of pretence and deceit where nothing is quite what it seems, and where evil lurks in the darkest corners of men's souls. When an overwhelming grief leads to a reckless decision, Frances has cause to remember the queen’s words.