The Wise Woman

Description

A haunting story of a woman's desire in a time of turbulence.


Alys joins the nunnery to escape hardship and poverty but finds herself thrown back into the outside world when Henry VIII's wreckers destroy her sanctuary. With nothing to support her but her looks, her magic and her own instinctive cunning, Alys has to tread a perilous path between the faith of her childhood and her own female power.


When she falls in love with Hugo, the feudal lord and another woman's husband, she dips into witchcraft to defeat her rival and to win her lover, but finds - as her cynical old foster-mother had advised - that magic makes a poor servant but a dominant master. Since heresy against the new church means the stake, and witchcraft the rope, Alys's danger is mortal. A woman's powers are no longer safe to use...

Promotion info

Reissue of Philippa Gregory's disturbing novel of passion and betrayal in Tudor England. / Philippa Gregory is now one of the most successful historical novelists writing today. / 'The Other Boleyn Girl' has now sold nearly 350,000 copies in paperback. / 'The Virgin's Lover' has sold 50,000 hardback copies to date and has been a bestseller in the UK, the US, and Number One in New Zealand. / Film versions of 'The Other Boleyn Girl' and 'The Queen's Fool' are in development. / Now reissued in a sumptuous new package. / The author is well known for her appearances on TV, as a Tudor expert and a regular on Time Team, and her frequent participation on Radio 4's Round Britian Quiz. / Competition: Hilary Mantel, Deborah Moggach, Reay Tannahill

Author description

Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.