The Elizabethan era. The golden age of England.

A period of time associated with William Shakespeare’s plays, Sir Francis Drake’s journeys to America, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

But who was the queen that gave her name to this period of time?

Queen Elizabeth I was one of England’s longest-reigning monarchs. A powerful and forceful woman in a world otherwise dominated by men, she learned early in life of the vagaries and caprice of men through her father’s succession of wives.

The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she was born a princess.

Later declared illegitimate, she succeeded the throne following a tumultuous period that saw three monarchs come and go in only eleven years.

It was a throne she was to hold for nearly half a century.

Surrounded by men whose first thought is of securing the succession, Elizabeth knows her duty is to marry and produce heirs. But though she entertains possibilities of marriage, the Virgin Queen cannot bring herself to enter into a union with any man, not when the man she wants most in the world cannot be hers.

Marrying for love is an impossibility for a reigning queen.

All Elizabeth desires is the love of a man she can cherish and respect, and who will worship, desire, and adore his queen in every possible way.

Through the years, she seeks love and loyalty from the many men who flock to her Court. They pay her compliments and engage in flirtatious games in an effort to gain favour and privileges.

But their greed and Elizabeth’s own lust for power and control destroy any possibility of happiness through love again and again.

Through the years, Elizabeth’s deep and abiding friendship and love for Robert Dudley, and his for her, sustains her, but, like every other man she has ever known, he too eventually betrays her.

Throughout it all, Tomasin Drew remains faithfully at her queen’s side.

Often ignored by other members of the Court due to her small size, for over fifty years she watches and listens, absorbing everything that occurs around Elizabeth.

There is no one who knows Queen Elizabeth so well, or who can speak truth so boldly to the queen. Yet even their firm friendship cannot ease the lonely ache in Elizabeth’s heart.

She would be remembered as the Virgin Queen. And Elizabethan England was her legacy.

The Virgin Queen is a heart-wrenching historical novel filled with the intrigue of the court and perils of being a woman in a male dominated world.

Maureen Peters was born in Caernarvon, North Wales. She was educated at grammar school and attended the University College of North Wales, Bangor, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and a diploma of Education. She taught disabled children before taking up writing under her own name and many pseudonyms. Peters has produced many books and contributed short stories to many magazines and her writing normally focuses on royalty, the War of the Roses and the Tudor period. Apart from biographical fiction on royalty she also wrote Gothic romances, family sagas, Mills & Boon series titles and contemporary mysteries.

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