A net for small fishes

'The Thelma and Louise of the seventeenth century: two mis-matched heroines, two grittily-textured lives, an outrageous plot (true!), sex, politics, and a gut-wrenching ending' Andrew Davies Frances Devereux has beauty, glamour, a powerful family - and not a friend in the world. Anne Taylor has wit, talent and ambition - but no way into the court she longs to enter. When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a friendship quickly sparks and catches. Following at Frankie's heels, Anne crosses into a world beyond her imagination: a court where a foreign king is a stranger to his own subjects; where ancient families vie for power, and where a favourite of the king may rise and rise - so long as he remains in favour. With the marriage of their talents, Anne and Frankie are an even match for this beautiful, savage hunting ground. But as Frankie's situation grows dangerous, and Anne's precarious, the women are driven to a series of desperate acts - acts which could lose them everything. What price ambition, and talent, and self-creation, at the cost of total destruction?>