The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn - #TuesdayTeaser

 Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.

This week we are looking at The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn.

Suzannah is the author of many historical fiction novels and I am loathe to admit that I have not read any of them. I'm not at all sure why I haven't, as all of her novels look like they are just the kind of thing that I enjoy reading. So, I intend to rectify this by reading The Testimony of Alys Twist, very soon.

Have you read this book? Or do you have another favourite that you think I would enjoy?

The Blurb

1553: deeply-divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary's mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn't. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.

Orphan Alys Twist has come a long way - further than she ever dared hope - to work as a laundress at the royal wardrobe. There she meets Bel, daughter of the Queen's tailor, and seems to have arrived at her own happy ending.

But in a world where appearance is everything, a laundress is in a unique position to see the truth of people's lives, and Alys is pressed into service as a spy in the errant princess's household. Alys herself, though, is hardly whiter than white, and when the princess is arrested she must make a dangerous choice.

The Beginning

Parchment Halo

I remembered it once said, when I was small, that I would go far. Whoever had spoken over my head had been right, I thought, because just twenty or so years later here I was, arriving to work at the palace, and no servant gets further than this.

Fresh off the wherry-boat, foot in the washroom door, I was all smiles for the pair introducing themselves as my fellow laundresses: Mrs Fox - more ox-like than fox-like - and her sourpuss sidekick, Kay. I was only too aware I was no choice of theirs, but a recommendation taken up by whoever at Whitehall did the hiring and firing. And, worse, three's a crowd. So busy was I with the smiling that I didn't spare a second glance for a young woman, small and neat in periwinkle mockado, who passed us on her way to what I would later learn was the drying room.

Introductions over, I was directed to my lodgings - the Wiltons' house on Kings Street - and when I returned to the laundry a half-hour later, there was no sign of the laundresses. Instead a ruddy-faced royal-liveried man came bounding across the deserted washroom towards me: 'Mistress Twist?'

Well, there was no denying it.

He said he was Mr Hobbes, Yeoman of the Robes, and would like to borrow me to cast my gaze over the queen's wardrobe: he'd value an expert eye, he said, and I had to stop myself from looking over my shoulder, because any eye I had was for linen, not the silks and wools of gowns. Mistress Fox had been so kind, he said, as to lend me for the day. Neither she nor the sharp-faced sidekick were in evidence to confirm or deny it, and who was I to argue with a man in uniform? So, out of my depth before I'd even started, I did my best to look competent, snatching up my pouch of fuller's earth and a couple of my flasks of flower waters: wood sorrel and celandine, if only because those had the tightest stoppers. I took no soap - gowns can't be soaped - and followed him from the laundry back to the riverside steps, which was when I queried: 'Wardrobe?'

***

Well I am feeling intrigued and am keen to read on. How about you?