Ursula beware!
A Web of Silk (An Ursula Blanchard Mystery #17)
by Fiona Buckley
August 1852. Once again Ursula Blanchard is thrust into a complex situation. I was caught up in the madness or intrepidness that is Ursula , half sister to Elizabeth I.
It might have been less complex if Ursula had not heard the wild geese.
Things seem to happen at once. Ill fatedness comes in threes!
Brockley's son Philip is found dead with a cross bolt through his chest.
A stained glass Judgement Window in the local church has been willfully smashed. (I found the idea of a Judgement Window, the depiction of Doomsday, fascinating BTW and I must admit to loving stained glass).
A bridal dowry chest has been stolen.
The local vicar, Dr Joynings had been talking to Ursula about the Judgement Window. He disliked it, "there’s too much blood and horror and it sometimes frightens young children …’"
Ursula decides that now is the time to commission a new church window, particularly as she also found the old one dark and sinister.
Ursula meets with Master Julius Stagg from Guildford, a designer and creator of stained glass, another merchant, John Hines who runs an old established business and a newly met at Greenwich, master classmaker from the city, named Tavener, in her search for the ideal craftsman to replace the window.
Meanwhile Francis Walsingham, the Queen's spymaster sends for Ursula with a mission that involves Giles Frost, her sea faring neighbor, whom Walsingham suspects of being in league with the Spanish. Ursula is to subtly spread rumors to Spain via Frost under the cover of teaching his daughters to embroider. (Frost's daughters have a need to learn the required gentle-womanly pursuits and practices).
I always feel that Ursula is trapped by Walsingham and her sister the Queen as surely as a fly on fly paper, "Walsingham sometimes made [her] shiver. [She] sometimes thought of him as a spider, waiting at the centre of a vast web. Waiting to pounce whenever an unwary fly … traitor … fell foul of its sticky threads."
That mission leaves Ursula trapped in the grim and dangerous position of being accused of wrongdoing. A factor that could lead to her death.
Tension as always was near to breaking point and the resolution a relief, with past actions brought to bear on Ursula's current situation.
As always Buckley provides insights into daily life and fears in Tudor times, which are both instructive and intriguing.
A Severn House ARC via NetGalley
****
by Fiona Buckley
It might have been less complex if Ursula had not heard the wild geese.
Things seem to happen at once. Ill fatedness comes in threes!
Brockley's son Philip is found dead with a cross bolt through his chest.
A stained glass Judgement Window in the local church has been willfully smashed. (I found the idea of a Judgement Window, the depiction of Doomsday, fascinating BTW and I must admit to loving stained glass).
A bridal dowry chest has been stolen.
The local vicar, Dr Joynings had been talking to Ursula about the Judgement Window. He disliked it, "there’s too much blood and horror and it sometimes frightens young children …’"
Ursula decides that now is the time to commission a new church window, particularly as she also found the old one dark and sinister.
Ursula meets with Master Julius Stagg from Guildford, a designer and creator of stained glass, another merchant, John Hines who runs an old established business and a newly met at Greenwich, master classmaker from the city, named Tavener, in her search for the ideal craftsman to replace the window.
Meanwhile Francis Walsingham, the Queen's spymaster sends for Ursula with a mission that involves Giles Frost, her sea faring neighbor, whom Walsingham suspects of being in league with the Spanish. Ursula is to subtly spread rumors to Spain via Frost under the cover of teaching his daughters to embroider. (Frost's daughters have a need to learn the required gentle-womanly pursuits and practices).
I always feel that Ursula is trapped by Walsingham and her sister the Queen as surely as a fly on fly paper, "Walsingham sometimes made [her] shiver. [She] sometimes thought of him as a spider, waiting at the centre of a vast web. Waiting to pounce whenever an unwary fly … traitor … fell foul of its sticky threads."
That mission leaves Ursula trapped in the grim and dangerous position of being accused of wrongdoing. A factor that could lead to her death.
Tension as always was near to breaking point and the resolution a relief, with past actions brought to bear on Ursula's current situation.
As always Buckley provides insights into daily life and fears in Tudor times, which are both instructive and intriguing.
A Severn House ARC via NetGalley
****
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