The sisters who would be queen

Leanda de Lisle's New York Times bestseller tells the story of the three Grey sisters — Jane, Katherine and Mary — in Tudor England, where royal blood could win a kingdom or cost a woman everything.

De Lisle explodes the popular image of Lady Jane Grey as an innocent, passive victim of her nine-day reign, presenting her instead as an intelligent and determined young woman who made her own choices. She then follows the sisters history largely forgot: Katherine, who changed her religion to keep Queen Mary's favour and later risked her life and freedom in a secret marriage that threatened Elizabeth's throne, and Mary, thought too plain to matter — until she too fell in love and incurred the queen's fury.

The result is a study of religion, politics and succession in sixteenth-century England, and of what it cost these women to be born close to the crown.