Traitor’s Legacy by S J Parris
This is the first novel in S J Parris’s new series her main character is Sophia de Wolfe a young widow with a past linked to Elizabeth’s spymaster Robert Cecil. The novel is set in 1598 an aged Queen Elizabeth has named no heir and England teeters on the edge of a knife. In this maelstrom a young heiress is discovered murdered her body dumped in the ruins of a theatre.
Robert Cecil calls upon Sophia to investigate placing her life as a young widow in danger but she has another, well-hidden, reason for discovering the perpetrator of this terrible crime. On the girls body was a note which appears to refer to Sophia’s past life as a spy and discovering who wrote the note could be the key to solving the mystery.
Her investigations lead her to the door of Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, The Earl of Essex, and deeper into danger. This is a gripping story and one which evokes the period in glorious detail. Sophia is a fascinating character and I look forward to other outings with her in future novels. I will be recommending it at my various book groups and look forward to listening to the author at the Essex Book Festival. Many thanks to Harper Collins UK, Net Galley and the author for the opportunity to read the book in return for an honest review.

S J Parris does not disappoint with this novel about Sophia de Wolfe a former agent of William Cecil She artfully weaves a story about spies and spy masters all set with a backdrop of Elizabethan London. A very entertaining book. Much to recommend.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the advance copy of this book.

The first book in a new series, with some familiar characters returning from the much missed Bruno novels. There was a fair amount of repetition to start with in a new backstory, but this should settle as new persons , both main and secondary, grow into their roles.
Set towards the latter years of Queen Elizabeth the First, she is still declining to name her successor, and her advisors are growing nervous as there are still threats from Spain and Ireland. Sir Francis Walsingham and Lord Burghley are both dead, and their famous network of spies employed to keep England safe has been fractured.
Sophia de Wolfe, used to be one such spy, working in Catholic households as an informer. She misses the excitement and the appreciation of her many talents and her skilled use of ciphers and codes. When a young woman of noble birth is found dead in the ruins of The Theatre, lately owned by Richard Burbage, and on her body is a message written in the code last used by Sophia, danger once again comes close to her and risks revealing hidden details of her secret son.
Anthony Munday, a close friend and former spy, are both charged to work together to find both the murderer and the motive, and many court figures come under suspicion, the ties that bind families are important.
Sophia is a real kick ass agent, and a wonderfully strong female lead.
We are also introduced to the Stratford Gentleman, one William Shakespeare, and the fascinating world of Elizabethan theatre. There are also vivid description of the harsh, dirty and dangerous world far away from the rarified life at court. There are no punches pulled about the sad and lonely life of entitled ladies, arranged marriages, and no rights over property and children. A good introduction to the skills of herbalists and cures for “ women’s problems”. Enlightening
A fast paced and enjoyable novel, with likeable and dependable characters, that I hope will return in the second offering.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers HarperCollinsUK, for my advanced read, freely given in return for my honest review. A four star read.
I will leave further reviews to Goodreads and Amazon UK upon publication.

What an absolute page turner! I love historical fiction and the Tudor period is one of my favourite times. SJ Parris has given Sophia de Wolfe, a character who features in her Bruno series, a leading role of her own in this book, which is set to be the beginning of a new series. When a note in a secret cipher known by the powers that be to have been used solely by Sophia is found pinned to the corpse of a young girl, Sophia finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation. Steeped in the politics of the time, the powerful family forces that held sway at court over Queen Elizabeth I, the superbly crafted world of the streets of Tudor London, this is a story that had me gasping in shock, seeking clues, throwing out red herrings and left me agog at the denouement! A sheer triumph in my eyes! I can’t wait for the next in this series.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for a review.

The writing was engaging with a good balance of description and narration. It really felt like we had stepped back in time. There were plenty of things going on to keep your attention. I was surprised by how everything came together in the end.

The book opened with a character list which was helpful as there were quite a few different characters to keep track of. There was then a prologue to set the scene followed by the rest of the chapters.

The chapters were long, and some of them had a date as a title which perfectly illustrated the passage of time. As the chapters were long, you got a big chunk of the story before moving on. There were lots of characters and little details to keep you on your toes, but it was written in a clear way that kept you moving forward.

There was a good pace to the book, with twists and turns to slow you down (in a good way!). There was a good amount of description to ground and enhance the story. The chapters flowed well together resulting in a nice read.

The characters were great. There were lots of different personalities that you weren't sure were true to the character. This added tension to the story. Every time you thought that you had the murderer and the story wrapped up something didn't quite match up. It kept me guessing until the end.

Lastly the settings. I loved being in Elizabethan London. The time period provided an excellent background for untrustworthy characters and suspense in the story. The general way that society was during that time again helped the story to be what it was.

Overall an excellent story, full of twists and turns, set in a volatile time in history.

The first in a new series set in the late 16th century introduces Sophia de Wolfe - a former agent - called on by the Queen's Spymaster to investigate the death of a 13 year old girl. Investigating senior and powerful men of London Sophia steps on many feet and risks her own life. While following this mystery we learn a great deal about Sophia's past. In with the intrigue are interesting descriptions of London and the loyalty of staff and how some risk their lives and positions telling the truth rather than let their employers get away with murder.
Many thanks to Netgalley/S.J. Pararis/HarperCollins UK for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a slow burn historical murder mystery. Set in 1598, Sophia de Wolfe is asked to investigate the death of a teenage girl and soon finds she has a personal interest in the case.

This is a richly detailed book; the characters and the settings are all described in immense detail. Perhaps due to this I did find the action a little slow at times, particularly in the first half of the book, but the second half was a much faster read.

This was a different read for me but I really liked the sound of the blurb. I feel like this story dragged on and on where nothing really happened. I’ve enjoyed the writing and the style of it, but I just feel the story itself was very slow paced for me. I liked Sophie as a character, and I was glad when she discovered who murdered Agnes - and that it was an accident after all. I was sad poor Badger was murdered, I liked his character too. It seems like Sophie and Tobie might end up with a story of their own?!

Another historical masterpiece from S. J. Parris set in late-Elizabethan England. Sophia de Wolfe is a great heroine and the story is full of suspense as she investigates the murder of a girl which is somehow connected to her secret past. Highly recommended story!

S J Parris has produced another excellent mystery set in the late days of Elizabeth Tudor’s reign when uncertainty over the future of the throne and fear of Catholic plots was rife.
This time, the main protagonist is Sophia de Wolfe, a widow who obviously has a very unusual past and one that she would rather not be common knowledge. The discovery of a young girl’s body seems to be linked to her past and Robert Cecil, the queen’s spymaster, demands that she investigate who carried out the murder.
I loved the opening of this book with the brazen theft of a theatre building by Richard Burbage and his players who intend to rebuild it elsewhere in London. The theatre link is strong throughout the book with William Shakespeare making a couple of appearances and I really enjoyed the way he got inspiration from events in the novel.
The plot was complex but never too complicated to keep track of and the author did a fantastic job of providing twists and turns so that it was never obvious what was going to happen next. The historical background was detailed and the combination of real characters such as The Earl of Essex and Robert Cecil with the fictional ones worked well. As always with S J Parris, the setting was brilliantly done. It was very easy to visualise London in those turbulent days towards the end of the sixteenth century. I always enjoy historical novels that add to my knowledge of the period and this story was a good example of that.
Sophia was a likeable protagonist who was determined to solve this murder and protect her secrets. She is a capable woman, in fact we first meet her as she is having a lesson in sword fighting and is not afraid to put herself in danger. It was nice to have a woman in this type of role and the constraints put on her because she was a woman and not a member of the aristocracy were well conveyed. The supporting cast were well written too especially Sophia’s fellow spy and her housekeeper.
This is a new series although Sophia has featured in at least one earlier book in the author’s previous series. At first it feels as though there must have been a previous book as there are a lot of references to Sophia’s past. However, we gradually find out some of what her past life involved and what the secrets are that she guards so carefully. One of the things I enjoyed was the tension created by the fact that as the plot unfolded, neither Sophia nor the reader knew who she could trust.
This was a great start to the series and I look forward to reading more of Sophia’s adventures. Thank you as always to Net Galley and the publishers, Harper Collins UK for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

It's December 1598, Queen Elizabeth I is still on the throne, but ageing, with no heir.

Sophia De Wolfe is a widow and former spy. When she retired her former spy-master, Walsingham, brokered a marriage for her with the wealthy merchant Humphrey de Wolfe and they were very happy until his death. When she was nineteen Sophia fell in love with a Jesuit priest and bore a child out of wedlock who was subsequently adopted, she has used her connections to discover the identity of the child, who is now a young man of fifteen and has kept an eye on him ever since. Her son, Tobie, who has no idea she is his birth mother, is an actor in a theatre company and she supports the company with her patronage.

One night, a young woman's body is found in a shallow grave. She is no pauper, instead she is an incredibly wealthy young woman, Agnes, ward to Sir Thomas North, who was intended to be betrothed to Thomas's son Edmund. Pinned to the girl's body is a note in a code created especially for Sophia when she was a spy. She hasn't thought of the code for a decade - who could have got hold of it and why would they use it to write a note and pin it to a body? Has someone discovered Sophia's past? Robert Cecil, the queen's current spymaster instructs Sophia to investigate.

Then disaster strikes. Sir Thomas has found love letters from Tobie to Agnes and has decided that Tobie killed her when she refused to elope with him. Now Sophia will do anything to rescue her son from prison. But as she investigates things become murky, was her death connected to a secret Catholic conspiracy? Why did the Countess of Essex take such an interest in Agnes? Is her murder related to the uprisings in Ireland? Was her murder a direct hit to Sophia?

I requested this book thinking the author was C.J. Sansom or Andrew Taylor (many of whose books I have read and enjoyed) and honestly I was none the wiser at the end that it wasn't one of these authors - I will definitely revisit her Giordano Bruno series - I think I bought the first one and couldn't get into it.

Overall, a fascinating, well-plotted historical detective series and I will definitely request the second book in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

An excellent start to this new series set in Elizabethan times. Full of historical intrigue this suspenseful story reveals the treachery that abounded st the time. The new protagonist Sophie is an interesting choice of character

Intrigue and murder in Elizabethan times - excellent stuff.

Christina de Wolfe, widow and former spy, becomes involved in all sorts of intrigue while trying to solve a murder. Court politics and class differences play a part as do a bevy of interesting characters. The plot moves along a good steady pace and keeps the reader involved and engaged. It's my first book by S J Parris but won't be the last. It's an eye-opener about the times at the end of Elizabeth's reign and I'm sure that it is historically accurate in may places. Well worth a look, especially for lovers of historical fiction and S J Parris fans. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is the first book in a new series by S J Parris, author of the seven-book
Giordano Bruno historical novels. The main protagonist, Sophia de Wolfe, is also a character in the Bruno mysteries, and although those who have read this series will have some idea of her back-story, it is by no means important to have read any of the earlier books. This book stands alone.

The novel is set in Elizabethan London, and is a fast-moving, interesting and intriguing murder mystery. I am already looking forward to the next in this series.

I couldnt wait to get my hands on this new series, starting with Traitor's Legacy, and what a start. Sophia de Wolfe emerges as the investigator of a thirteen-year-old girl's murder... This is the winter of 1598, and Sophia is tested to the limit trying to find the murderer of this girl because her past depends on it... She finds it harder to investigate being a woman in the 1500s than a man would. But she is no novice in spying in this political arena, and boy, does she deliver.

I love love love this, and I did not see the end coming. I wait in anticipation for the next book starring Sophia de Wolfe. But who is she?
It's five stars from me.

When the body of murdered young girl is found at a theatre construction site and it turns out she’s an heiress with a cryptic note in her pocket her death can’t be ignored. Sophia se Wolfe is called in by the son of her old spy master to investigate but things get tricky when Sophia’s own secrets are close to being spilled. This is the follow up series to the Giordano Bruno novels where Sophia was the sort Madame deWinter to Bruno’s muskateers. She was the one that got away. In Traitors Legacy we see when she got away to. She married a rich man who left her all his money when he died. So all good. And also a bitter step son. Not so good. I enjoyed this, the mystery kept me guessing and the characters were interesting. It was a bit soapy in some places and there was couple of anachronistic clunkers which I don’t expect from Paris. I also found the relationship between Sophia and her married friend slightly tiresome. Paris never lets anyone be happy. But all in all it was entertaining stuff.

Another good novel for lovers of historical mysteries. This is the start of a new series following the exploits of Sophia De Wolfe who originally appeared as a character in the authors excellent Giordano Bruno series. A not found on a murdered heiress seems to indicate a connection between Sophia and the girl. Tasked to investigate by Master Secretary Cecil the successor to her former spymaster Francis Walshingham Sophia is drawn deeper into the mystery and its connections to her own family. The story is well plotted and conveys the atmosphere and social norms of the era in a convincing way
A good start to a new series which I will enjoy following.

I loved this book which was richly plotted and full of historical detail. Gripping and at times very moving with a heroine to cheer for. A triumph for the author.

Traitor’s Legacy S J Parris

5 stars

I have read the majority of the Bruno Giordano books and loved them all. When I ordered this book on Netgalley I assumed it was a continuation of the Bruno stories but in fact was delighted to find out that this is the start of a new series featuring Sophia de Wolfe. We have met her before as an on-off lover of Bruno but she is now a wealthy widow and has given up working undercover as a spy once Sir Francis Walsingham passed away.

However when a young girl is found murdered with Sophia's personal cipher on a note attached to the victim's body she is drawn back into her old life. The victim, Agnes Lovell is a ward of Sir Thomas North due to inherit lands and betrothed to Edmund North. Her body is found in a demolished theatre site which had been owned by The Chamberlain's Men. When it is discovered that Agnes was in love with one of the company, Tobie Strange 15, and had planned to elope with him he is arrested for her murder. Tobie does not know that he is the bastard son of Sophia and as a mother she has to try and prove his innocence.

I absolutely loved this book, as always the Elizabethan era is brought to life but this time with a leading character who is a strong female. The author combines fact with fiction so well and I loved the way William Shakespeare is depicted as getting some of his ideas and characters from actual events, eg Lady Macbeth. The intrigues of the court and the worries surrounding the heir to Queen Elizabeth who is nearly 70 are well documented and as always the machinations around the courtiers who are all trying to curry favour is so well described. I cant wait for the next instalment in this series

Karen Deborah
Reviewer for Net galley

Oh my goodness, this story was excellent, Sophia de Wolfe is certainly a force to be reckoned with, I really hope this is the start of a series because I can't wait to read more of this wonderful work, Bravo!