The Bride Price (Thwarted Queen, #1)

THE BRIDE PRICE is the first in a series of four books about Cecylee Neville (1415-1495), mother of Richard III and Edward IV, Queen by Right and Abbess. This tale of Cecylee’s girlhood will appeal to readers of YA novels.

Cecylee is the apple of her mother’s eye. The seventh daughter, she is the only one left unmarried by 1424, the year she turns nine. In her father’s eyes, however, she is merely a valuable pawn in the game of marriage. The Earl of Westmorland plans to marry his youngest daughter to 13-year-old Richard, Duke of York, who is close to the throne.

This is a splendid match, for if anything were to happen to three-year-old King Henry, Richard would be King. But what about Cecylee? Does she want to marry Richard? Does she want to marry at all? For by the age of ten, Cecylee has already experienced too much violence at the hands of men.

Set in the years following the great English victory at Agincourt in 1415, the novel shows Cecylee surrounded by a household of clever and resourceful women who read Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale and other subversive manuscripts, which colors her attitudes about marriage and the role of women. Does she wish to marry Richard? Does she wish to marry at all? For at the age of ten, Cecylee has already experienced too much violence at the hands of men.