Elizabethan England comes alive in all its pomp and pageantry, deadly intrigue and scandal-and fine feasting-in Karen Harper's acclaimed mystery series featuring the young queen, Elizabeth Tudor, as amateur sleuth.
An old English Yule has never been merrier or more mysterious. A New Year's celebration has never looked more joyous but been so potentially deadly.
Fearing the Twelve Days of Christmas of 1564 may be the last for her ailing, elderly friend, Lady Kat Ashley, Queen Elizabeth decrees a nostalgic, old-fashioned holiday. Delicious dishes for the table, holly and ivy, caroling, wassailing, mumming, and a Lord of Misrule to oversee it all are in the recipe for the revels. But one of the queen's kitchen staff is found as dead as the ornate peacock he was preparing for the feast.
As more murders threaten customs, kingdom, and Christmas, Elizabeth and her diverse band of Privy Plot Counselors try desperately to solve the increasingly bizarre crimes. When the Thames freezes over and Londoners take to the ice for an elaborate Frost Fair. Elizabeth of England must outfox the diabolical demon who would kill not only the spirit of Christmas but the queen.