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The Pretender by Jo Harkin (PRE-ORDER)

The Pretender by Jo Harkin (PRE-ORDER)

Regular price £17.09 GBP
Regular price £18.99 GBP Sale price £17.09 GBP
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DATE OF RELEASE: 24 APR 2025

Wolf Hall meets Demon Copperhead in a sharply ambitious, brilliantly imagined and hugely entertaining story of intrigue, deceit, revenge and ambition.

‘The Pretender has everything: history richly drawn, amazing characterisation, humour, wit, vigour and bravery. It's magnificent’ Emma Stonex

Kill the pretender. Do not let it be known that there was a pretender to kill.

The year is 1480 and England is in peril. The much-despised Richard III is not long for the throne, and the man who will become Henry VII stands poised to snatch the crown for himself. But for twelve-year-old John Collan, living in a remote village with his widowed father, these matters seem far away.

But history has other plans for John. Stolen from his family, exiled – first to Oxford, then to Burgundy, and then Ireland – and apprenticed to a series of unscrupulous political operators, he finds himself groomed for power; not as John Collan, but as Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick – and rightful heir to the throne. Far from home at the Irish court, preparing for a war that will see him become king or die trying, John has just his wits – and the slippery counsel of his host’s daughter, the unconventional Joan – to navigate the choppy waters ahead.

Seething with revenge and machination, sparkling with wit and humanity, and roaring with adventure and bravado, The Pretender is the captivating true story of a young man tossed into the chaos of history as it happens.

Hardback
Publication: 24 Apr 2025, Bloomsbury 

ISBN: 9781526678348

Extent: 464 pages

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