It was 1501. England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy and civil war. Henry VII had clambered to the top of the heapa fugitive with a flimsy claim to England's crown who managed to win the throne and stay on it for sixteen years. Although he built palaces, hosted magnificent jousts, and sent ambassadors across Europe, for many he remained a false king. But Henry had a crucial asset: his familythe queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hoped-for dynasty. Now, in what would be the crowning glory of his reign, his elder son would marry a great Spanish princess. In his remarkable debut, Thomas Penn re-creates an England that is both familiar and very strangea country medieval yet modern, in which honor and chivalry mingle with espionage, high finance, and corruption. It is the story of the transformation of a young, vulnerable boy, Prince Henry, into the aggressive teenager who would become Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon, his future queen, as well as Henry VIIcontrolling, avaricious, paranoid, with Machiavellian charm and will to power.  Rich with incident and drama, filled with wonderfully drawn characters, Winter King is an unforgettable tale of pageantry, surveillance, the thirst for gloryand the fraught, unstable birth of Tudor England. Advance praise for Winter King: ;A wonderful read, as rich in character and drama as Wolf Hall, only shorter and true. ; John Carey, author of William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies   ;This is an exceptionally stylish literary debut.&This book should be the first port of call for anyone trying to understand England's most flagrant usurper since William the Conqueror. ; Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years