Home     Reading Guides     Top Tips     Host With the Most     Vintage Living Texts     Special Feature     Hot Spot     Competition     Feedback     Random House
 
 

By putting one of our authors on the 'Hotspot' we hope to give you and your reading group the chance to have all those burning questions you might have, answered by the authors themselves - we can't imagine a more direct way of uncovering an author's motivations and intentions!

Alison Weir was already one of Britain’s most popular historians when she wrote her first novel, Innocent Traitor, which hit the Sunday Times bestseller list to a chorus of praise.

Now, in her second novel, Alison Weir goes to the heart of Tudor England at its most dangerous and faction-riven in telling the story of Elizabeth I before she became queen. The towering capricious figure of Henry VIII dominates her childhood, but others play powerful roles: Mary, first a loving sister, then as queen a lethal threat; Edward, the rigid and sad little King; Thomas Seymour, the Lord High Admiral, whose ambitions, both political and sexual, are unbridled. And, an ever-present ghost, the enigmatic, seductive figure of her mother Anne Boleyn, executed by Henry, whose story Elizabeth must unravel.

Elizabeth learns early that the adult world contains many threats that have to be negotiated if she is to keep her heart and her head.

Alison Weir  

Q & A

Our author question and answer section will give you and your reading group the chance to put forward questions which might arise during the course of a session to the author. As well as offering the opportunity to contribute to the website it is the quickest way to receive a direct and clear-cut response.

To read Alison Weir's responses to our questions CLICK HERE

The Lady Elizabeth

  COMING UP
     


May 08

Janelle Brown for All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

   
  Future Hot Spot Authors
      June 08
-
Jacqueline Sheehan for Lost and Found    
  Past Hot Spot Authors
  January 03
-
Chloe Hooper for A Child's Book of True Crime  
      March 03
-
Bo Caldwell for The Distant Land of My Father    
      May 03
-
Carol Goodman for The Lake of Dead Languages    
      July 03
-
Mary Lawson for Crow Lake    
      September 03
-
Mark Haddon for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time    
      November 03
-
Karin Slaughter for Kisscut    
      January 04
-
Sebastian Faulks for Birdsong    
      March 04
-
Elizabeth Bergs for True to Form    
      May 04
-
Anne Tyler for The Amateur Marriage    
      July 04
-
Rose Tremain for The Colour    
      September 04
-
Alice Hoffman for Blackbird House    
      November 04
-
Jane Juska for A Round-Heeled Woman    
      December 04
-
Ian McEwan for Enduring Love    
      February 05
-
Audrey Niffenegger for The Time Traveler's Wife    
      April 05
-
Deborah Moggach for These Foolish Things    
      June 05
-
Lindsey Davis for Scandal Takes a Holiday    
      August 05
-
Deborah Lawrenson for The Art of Falling    
      October 05
-
A. L. Kennedy for Paradise    
      January 06
-
Arthur Golden for Memoirs of a Geisha    
      March 06
-
Margaret Forster for Is There Anything You Want?    
      May 06
-
Diana Evans for 26a    
      July 06
-
Chuck Palahniuk for Haunted    
      September 06
-
Douglas Kennedy for State of the Union    
      November 06
-
Julian Barnes for Arthur & George    
      January 07
-
Kit Whitfield for Bareback    
      March 07
-
John Burnside for A Lie About My Father    
      May 07
-
Tim Willocks for The Religion    
      October 07
-
Irvine Welsh for The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs    
      January 08
-
Sadie Jones for The Outcast    
      March 08
-
Dan Gardner for Risk    
 
 
Random House Resources
  NEWS BY EMAIL  
  FIND A BOOK  
  EXTRACTS  
  AUDIO  
  AUTHOR EVENTS  
Top tips
  Help is at hand...  

If you would like to become a member of a reading group, start a reading group of your own or are looking for tips to liven up an existing group, TOP TIPS has the right advice for you.
CLICK HERE.

New Guides
  For the very latest guides on a wide selection of titles from modern fiction to classics and new writers, CLICK HERE.  
New Guides
  For even more Reading Guides, check out the sister site to Random House at BooksatTransworld.  
Competition
 

Win 8 copies of either The Road Home, Where the River Ends or Songs of Blue and Gold for you and your reading group!

Click Here to win a set…

Songs of Blue and Gold

 
National Year of Reading
`