SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2017

Born into nobility and married into the royal family, Catherine Howard was attended every waking hour secrets were impossible to keep. In this thrilling reappraisal of Henry VIIIs fifth wife, Gareth Russells history unfurls as if in real time to explain how the queens career ended with one of the great scandals of Henrys reign. This is a grand tale of the Henrician court in its twilight, a glittering but pernicious sunset during which the kings unstable behaviour and his courtiers labyrinthine deceptions proved fatal to many, not just to Catherine Howard.