Blood is thicker than water – unless the King decrees otherwise.

A compelling first-person narration of childhood, as told by Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor. History remembers her only as "Bloody Mary" because of the brutality of her reign, but this compelling recreation of her childhood brings alive the contradictions and conflicts and true danger of being the daughter of a "divorced" queen as her father falls under the spell of the "witch" Anne Boleyn and why such an apparently privileged little girl could grow up to be such a monster.

Published by Harcourt Brace in USA 1999, it has been widely reviewed and acclaimed; was an ALA Notable Book, and among the ALA 10 Notable Books of that year.