The King’s Curse by Philippa Gregory (Simon & Schuster £20, ebook £8.83) 4/5 stars 

THE author who brought us Elizabeth the White Queen, Margaret the Red Queen and made us fall in love with Anne Neville’s husband Richard III, now introduces us to Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. As Princess Margaret of York, she was the daughter of George, Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville, and niece of King Edward IV and King Richard III, but her life changed in 1485 when Lancaster heir Henry Tudor came to the throne and ended Plantagenet rule. Her cousin, Elizabeth, married Henry while Margaret married Tudor supporter Henry Pole, becoming Lady-In-Waiting and life-long friend to Catherine of Aragon and Lady Governess to her daughter Mary.

But Margaret is tragically widowed with five small children and no money, though when Henry VIII comes the the throne, her fortunes improve again until, aged 65, she is arrested, accused of treason and sent to the Tower of London. There was no trial, and in 1541 aged 67, she was brutally executed.

In Margaret, Phillipa Gregory has given us another fabulous heroine; a likeable, clever character who becomes one of the wealthiest women in the country. The reader is drawn into her passion for life, as we see her mange her lands and properties, and look after her family and servants. When is the TV series?

Seven For a Secret by Lyndsay Faye (Headline Review £7.99) 3/5 stars 

THERE’S something rotten at the core of the Big Apple and it’s down to one of New York’s finest, detective Timothy Wilde, to restore the city’s reputation. He knows the score on vice, violence and corruption, but when he has to tackle “blackbirders”, slavecatchers with a right to seize runaways from the Southern states, he plunges into even darker depths of evil and desperation. It might be 1845, but this is still a naked and dangerous city.