Full AspenCat Catalog

Named after a character in a Shakespeare play, misfit sixth-grader Hero becomes interested in exploring this unusual connection because of a valuable diamond supposedly hidden in her new house, an intriguing neighbor, and the unexpected attention of the most popular boy in school.

When the powerful Duke of Norfolk arranges a marriage between her daughter and an unsuitable man, Ursula Blanchard, a half-sister to Elizabeth I, uncovers a plot to overthrow the queen and begins to spy on one of the conspirators.

When Queen Elizabeth's favored lutenist falls to his death from a parapet at Richmond Palace, she at first suspects an accident brought on by too much drink. However, members of her "Privy Plot Council" (Meg the herbalist, Ned the actor, Jenks the stable hand, et al.) begin sleuthing into the numerous intrigues at court. Not until another near-fatal "accident" occurs does Elizabeth, besotted with the married but charming and seductive Robert Dudley,...

"February, 1586. When the queen's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, learns that Ursula is to visit her relatives in Devon, he asks her to find out what has happened to two of his local agents, who have been strangely silent recently. On arrival in the small Devon village of Zeal Aquatico, Ursula discovers that both spies in question have met with mysterious--and fatal--accidents. Or is there more to it than that? What did the two spies find out that...

Newly appointed to his post as Deputy Warden of the West March, Sir Robert Carey encounters his first challenge when a lad is found dead.

On May 30, 1593, London's most popular playwright was stabbed to death. The royal coroner ruled that Christopher Marlowe was killed in self-defense, but historians have long suspected otherwise, given his role as an "intelligencer" in the queen's secret service. In sixteenth-century London, Marlowe embarks on his final intelligence assignment, hoping to find his missing muse, as well as the culprits behind a high-stakes smuggling scheme. In present-day...

Elizabeth I wants to approve an "official" portrait for distribution in the realm. Three portrait contenders accompany Elizabeth and the court to the mythical Nonsuch Palace, where an arsonist's fire consumes an artist's tent and its two occupants. Elizabeth leaps into action, has the corpses and tents examined, prods her "privy plot council" into motion, and confronts further acts of the pyromaniac

"March, 1581. Queen Elizabeth is once again being urged to consider marriage to the Duke of Alenc̦on, a French Catholic twenty years her junior. The prospect of the match is causing unrest throughout the kingdom. Ursula however has more immediate matters to worry about when her 9-year-old son is snatched away while out riding. If she is ever to see him again, Ursula must undertake an impossibly difficult and dangerous mission - and commit an act...

In sixteenth-century England, Brendan Prescott enters a world of danger and lies when he reluctantly agrees to work as a double agent for Princess Elizabeth's protector, William Cecil.