Innocent Traitor

A “vibrant and fresh” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) portrait of Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days’ Queen—the stunning first novel from the renowned author hailed as “the finest historian of English monarchical succession writing” (The Boston Globe)

“Poignant [and] gripping.”—The Seattle Times “Enormously entertaining.”—The Washington Post

I am now a condemned traitor. . . . I am to die when I have hardly begun to live.

The child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, Lady Jane Grey is born during the harrowingly turbulent period between Anne Boleyn’s beheading and the demise of Jane’s infamous great-uncle, King Henry VIII. Vexed by not having a male heir, Jane’s abusive parents connive to use their intelligent, dutiful young daughter as a pawn in a dangerous dynastic game.

But when the premature death of Jane’s adolescent cousin—and Henry’s successor—King Edward VI thwarts their original ploy, Jane unwittingly finds herself at the center of the struggle for supremacy. And though she has no ambitions to rule, preferring to immerse herself in books and religion, she is forced to accept the crown, and by so doing sets off a firestorm of intrigue, betrayal, and tragedy.

“In giving narrative voice to her subjects Alison Weir brings us into emotional contact with them in a way that an unadorned historical account does not.”—Boston Sunday Globe