‘Borman’s expertise as a historian of the period is much in evidence throughout a lively, entertaining novel’ The Sunday Times

‘So vividly evoked that you are there’ Alison Weir

‘Rich evocation of 17th-century life’ The Times

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Frances Gorges has already survived the accusation of witchcraft.

But if her torturers at the court of King James knew of her love for Tom Wintour, one of the executed members of the gunpowder plot, it would mean certain death.

Pregnant with Tom’s child, hiding under the reluctant protection of her spiteful and ambitious brother, Frances lives in fear – until she is offered the chance to make a respectable – if loveless – marriage and return to court.

She will not be expected to sleep with her husband. The only price she must pay for safety is to give up the cause for which her lover died.

But old loyalties are hard to deny, and soon Frances is drawn back into the snake-pit scheming of the factions trying to take the throne.

Everywhere she turns, it seems that someone has the power to force her deeper into danger until, all too late, Frances hears the warnings of her own heart.

Compelling, sensual, suspenseful, The Devil’s Slave is a standalone sequel to The King’s Witch and further evidence that one of our finest historians is also a brilliant novelist.