The Path to Somerset by Janet Ambrosi Wertman

After the tragic romance of Jane the Quene, the second book in The Seymour Saga trilogy, The Path to Somerset, takes a dark turn through an era. In this, King Henry VIII descends into cynicism, suspicion, and fits of madness, where mistakes mean death.

Edward Seymour’s future is uncertain. Earlier, his sister Jane bore Henry the son after twenty years of his wait. However, when she died in childbirth, Henry’s good nature died with her.  Now the fiercely ambitious Edward must carve a difficult path through Henry’s shifting principles and wives. There is also a challenge for Edward at every turn by his nemesis, Bishop Stephen Gardiner. Now he must embrace ruthlessness in order to safeguard not only his own future but England’s as well.

This is the account of Henry’s tumultuous reign, from the view of two opponents. Their fierce disagreements over religion and common decency fuel epic struggles for the soul of the nation. And for power.

About the Author:

Janet Ambrosi Wertman grew up in the midst of bookstores and a library on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She visited all of them regularly. Given that her grandfather was an antiquarian book dealer, he persuaded Janet’s parents to send her to the French school. There, she was taught to aspire to long (grammatically correct) sentences as the hallmark of a skillful writer. She lived that lesson until she got to Barnard College. 

Janet spent fifteen years as a corporate lawyer in New York.  She even got to do a little writing on the side   co-authoring The Executive Compensation Answer Book, In 1997. She moved with her family to Los Angeles where she became a grant writer and took up writing fiction.

Janet had a passion for the Tudor Kings and Queens since watching the televised Masterpiece Theatre series as an eight-year-old. One of the highlights of Janet’s youth was being allowed to visit the Pierpont Morgan Library and examine books from Queen Elizabeth’s personal library and actual letters that the young Princess Elizabeth had written.

The Boy King is the third book in the Seymour Saga, the story of the unlikely dynasty that shaped the Tudor era. The first book, Jane the Quene, tells the story of Jane Seymour’s marriage to Henry VIII; and The Path to Somerset, chronicles Edward Seymour’s rise after Jane’s death to become Lord Protector of England and Duke of Somerset (taking us right through Henry’s crazy years).

Janet is currently working on a new trilogy about Elizabeth, and preparing to publish her translation of a nineteenth century biography of Henry. 

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