This is the story of Isabel Stanhope, the daughter of a seventeenth-century English Catholic family, who becomes involved with the dangerous political and religious factions of the day. An English heroine. - Katharine McMahon writes about the real lives of women from the past. - Strong narrative, vividly-drawn characters and a historical setting. Entertaining and romantic. A more intelligent novel than Moggach's Tulip Fever but just as entertaining. - Based in part on the true story of Mary Ward, one of the seventeenth century's most adventurous, infuriating and inspirational women. A lost feminist icon, a pioneer educationalist and an energetic advocate of the rights of women in a world where even well-bred women were expected to remain silent and subservient.