Lizzie, only daughter of a Scottish laird, inherits a Book of Hours originally owned my Margaret Tudor, James IV of Scotland’s queen. She used it, as people often did in the sixteenth century, as a diary. Her influence on her descendants, Lizzie, and her daughter Lisette, is the thread that ties the story together.

My own family tree comes to an abrupt halt with my great-great-grandfather who was reputed to be the black sheep of a titled family. Does that mean I should be Lady Sarah? Or should I be living at Botany Bay, in Australia, the destination of sheep-rustlers and their like?

Lizzie falls in love with Michael, an amateur actor with a burning ambition, and a deep need, to succeed professionally: everything is against him, born in poverty and trapped for years helping his widowed mother in the family chippy.

Does Lizzie and Michael’s love last or is Lisette the daughter of another man? Does Michael achieve his well-nigh impossible bid for stardom?

Those facts are waiting to be read, hidden within a book, like Queen Margaret’s coded, traitorous, secrets.

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