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![]() ![]() ![]() HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers will flock to the latest from esteemed best-seller Phillips, whose signature literary prowess and nimble imagination remain ascendant. Evoked in exquisite language full of subtle shadings and theatrical references, the plot grows suspenseful, and readers will appreciate how it lets them grasp on their own where it leads. ![]() Phillips crafts a believable late-Elizabethan backdrop laced with intrigue and juxtaposes it with a deep dive into the emotions of an intelligent man in exile from country, family, even a sense of hope. Arthur Phillips returns with a unique and thrilling novel that will leave readers questioning the nature of truth at every turn. He will do almost anything to return home to his wife and son. Getting close to the Scots king isn’t easy, though. The perfect man for the job, Ezzedine is the ultimate outsider, stranded on this cold, wet, and primitive island. In 1601, with Elizabeth old and ailing, Ezzedine is approached with a delicate proposal: determine whether James is at heart Protestant or Catholic, and he can rejoin his wife and son in Constantinople. In Phillips’ ( The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011) inventively multilayered novel, their chosen agent, Mahmoud Ezzedine, is a Muslim physician in the Ottoman ambassador’s contingent who was left behind in bleak England. On matters of religion, Elizabeth I famously said she didn’t desire to “make windows into men’s souls.” To preserve her Protestant realm and prevent future bloodshed, however, her intelligencers devise a scheme to do exactly that to her likely successor, Scotland’s James VI. ![]()
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