Alys Clare

Winter, 1211. King John's reign is harsh, and his tax collectors wring money from people near to starvation. Homeless, desperate men are reduced to walking the streets, begging for handouts, and the nuns at Hawkenlye Abbey, now under John's iron rule, are all but powerless to help. Former abbess Helewise decides to move back to her cell near the abbey, to better help the needy, putting a strain on her tentative relationship with Sir Josse D'Acquin....

In Autumn of 1093, Lassair encounters a veiled noblewoman on the quay at Cambridge, set on by an angry mob. She has no idea that the woman, alone but for her infant child, brings both mystery and peril. Then a devastating flood hits the fens, and among the wreckage washed up Aelf Fen is a body. Lassair, in the company of a sheriff's officer, wonders if she is dealing with murder. Meanwhile, in the south, Lassair's beloved Rollo is moving with relief...

Apprentice healer Lassair isn't too alarmed when a travelling peddler relates a grisly tale of a red-bearded giant breaking into a woman's home and caving in her skull like an eggshell; peddlers, she has observed, tend towards the dramatic. But her attitude changes when she learns that the dead woman is a distant relation. The incident makes Lassair's family uneasy, for the intruder seemed to be searching for something. What could it be? Lassair has...

Called out to attend a body found on a lonely stretch of river bank, its throat torn out, apprentice healer Lassair is skeptical of the sheriffs verdict that this was the result of a wild animal attack. But when a second body is discovered, similarly mutilated, rumors engulf the town that the legendary demon known as the Night Wanderer has returned to wreak havoc.

Surgeon Gabriel Taverner finds it difficult to gain the locals' trust as he attempts to reestablish himself as a country physician in rural Devon, England. A series of disturbing incidents convinces him that at least one person does not welcome his presence. Called out to examine a partially decomposed body found beside the river, Gabriel discovers that he has a personal connection to the dead man. Teaming up with Coroner Theophilus Davey to find...

"October, 1604. Plague has hit London, and the theatres are closed. But the capital's loss is Plymouth's gain, when a London theatre troupe, the Company, arrive on their 'Plague Tour'. Country physician Gabriel Taverner is both bewitched and unnerved by the Company's sexually charged staging of Othello. The play thrums with magic and witchcraft - perilous subjects, with the King's deadly spies lurking around every corner. When Gabriel's good friend,...