Verity

by Maureen Peters

Tansy Clark is an independent woman with a pleasant house in Chelsea, and a close friend, Frank Cartwright. But this is London in the 1870s, and the Thames that flows at the bottom of Tansy's garden yields macabre secrets. It is beside the river that Tansy meets Verity, a young woman who has recently rented a house in the neighbourhood and who waits anxiously for a missing husband to return. In trying to help the lonely young wife, Tansy is enmeshed in a dangerous and involved puzzle, which will lead her into the murky outposts of the East End. Now not only her friendship with Frank Cartwright is threatened, but also her own life.

242 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2002

About the author

Maureen Peters was born in Caernarvon, Wales, on March 3, 1935, and was married and divorced twice; she has two sons and two daughters. In addition to biographical fiction, historical romances, and mystery novels written under her own name, other noms de plume include Veronica Black, Catherine Darby, Levanah Lloyd, Belinda Grey, Elizabeth Law, Judith Rothman, and Sharon Whitby.

She was educated at grammar school and attended the University College of North Wales, Bangor, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and a diploma of Education. For some time she taught disabled children, and then took up writing. She has produced many books and contributed short stories to many magazines. Peters is also known as a Bronte scholar.

Her novels, which easily number over one hundred, have often focused on royalty, mostly the War of the Roses and Tudor period, and cover the lives of Elizabeth I of England, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, as well as of other famous and less famous historical figures such as Edward II of England, the many Queen consorts of various Kings of England. Apart from biographical fiction on royalty (written under her own name), she also wrote Gothic romances, family sagas, Mills & Boon series titles, and contemporary mysteries.