The seventh son

Reay Tannahill

Reay Tannahill's enthralling new novel is a family saga in the grand tradition, a tale of brother against brother, cousin against cousin, of love, hate and intrigue, of women inescapably entangled in the fates of their men, and of a mystery that has exercised people's minds for more than five hundred years. At the heart of it all is the dangerous, complex human being known to history as Richard III, here brought vividly alive in Reay Tannahill's expert hands - in his private life cool and sardonic, marrying for gain but learning to love, capable of inspiring great loyalty, and discovering too late that he can be ruled by emotions he is scarcely aware of possessing; in his public life, bold, competent and tireless in pursuit of profit and power, making enemies more easily than friends, and himself in the end falling victim to the most devoted of those enemies - the mother of the king who is to succeed him, Henry VII. Here, in all its vivid colour, its rich and absorbing detail, is the story of an extended family in mediaeval England. Here, too, is tragedy. For centuries, Richard has been held guilty of murdering the Princes in the Tower. Reay Tannahill offers a less conventional solution in what is perhaps the best and without doubt the most moving novel she has yet written.