The Kiss of the Concubine - Judith Arnopp

28th January 1547. It is almost midnight and the cream of English nobility hold their breath as King Henry VIII prepares to face his God. As the royal physicians wring their hands and Archbishop Cranmer gallops through the frigid night, two dispossessed princesses pray for their father's soul and a boy, soon to be king, snivels into his velvet sleeve. Time slows, and dread settles around the royal bed, the candles dip and something stirs in the darkness ... something, or someone, who has come to tell the king it is time to pay his dues. The Kiss of the Concubine is the story of Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII's queens.