Blending historical fact with contemporary rumor, the bestselling author of "The Queen's Fool" creates a dark and tense novel of Tudor times, which casts Elizabeth I in a light no one has suggested before. Passionate, fearful, emotionally needy, this is a queen who rules over a feverishly plotting, pleasure-seeking court.

The National Bestseller

In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen. One woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth's ambitious leap to the throne will draw her husband back to the center of the glamorous Tudor court, where he was born to be.

Elizabeth's excited triumph is short-lived. She has inherited a bankrupt country where treason is rampant and foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisor William Cecil warns her that she will survive only if she marries a strong prince to govern the rebellious country, but the one man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the ambitious Robert Dudley. As the young couple falls in love, a question hangs in the air: can he really set aside his wife and marry the queen? When Amy is found dead, Elizabeth and Dudley are suddenly plunged into a struggle for survival.

Philippa Gregory's "The Virgin's Lover“ answers the question about an unsolved crime that has fascinated detectives and historians for centuries. Intelligent, romantic, and compelling, ”The Virgin's Lover" presents a young woman on the brink of greatness, a young man whose ambition exceeds his means, and the wife who cannot forgive them.

Philippa Gregory is the author of several bestselling novels, including “The Other Boleyn Girl, ” and is a?recognized authority on women's history. She studied history at the University of Sussex and received a Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh.?She welcomes visitors to her website,