Book Launch Spotlight: Queens and Kings: An Unusually Personal History, by Lucy Worsley

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Lucy Worsley has lived and breathed royal history for more than twenty years. As Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, she worked in some of Britain's most famous royal sites, from Hampton Court to the Tower of London, and even lived in one of them herself. Now she takes us behind closed doors to reveal some of the monarchy's best-kept secrets.

In Queens and Kings, Lucy brings to life the rulers who have shaped Britain over the last thousand years, from Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn to Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. What emerges is a royal world far stranger, funnier and more surprising than we might think: of intimate love letters, phantom pregnancies, unruly pet monkeys and fatal betrayals. Venturing through haunted staircases and into private bedchambers, she finds the details that make history feel gloriously human.

With her trademark warmth and incisive scholarship, Lucy explores the full splendour, scandal and sorrow of royal life. The result is a wildly engaging history of the monarchy from one of our most beloved historians.

'Warm, insightful, and full of heart, Worsley has distilled a lifetime of experience into this crowning achievement of a book.' HALLIE RUBENHOLD

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About the Author 

Dr Lucy Worsley was Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the charity which looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, and other historic places. Her first paid employment after studying history at Oxford was at a minor stately home called Milton Manor, near Abingdon, where she fed the llamas. After that she became an Inspector of Ancient Monuments at English Heritage, doing historical research at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire: this led to her first book, 'Cavalier', about a dissolute Royalist duke. Her work as a curator at Kensington Palace led to 'Courtiers', which was followed by 'If Walls Could Talk', 'A Very British Murder', and her first historical novel for young readers, 'Eliza Rose', which is set at the Tudor court.for young readers, 'Eliza Rose', which is set at the Tudor court. For more information visit Lucy's website www.lucyworsley.com and find her on Twitter @Lucy_Worsley and Bluesky @lucyworsley.bsky.social