'I loved every single page' EMMA STONEX           

'With a huge heart - I loved it' SARAH WATERS

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

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 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 – rightful heir to the throne.

As he prepares 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.

Inspired by real-life pretender Lambert Simnel, The Pretender is the captivating true story of a young man tossed into the chaos of history as it happens.