WORK IN PROGRESS:

THE BLOODIEST QUEEN (to be published in the UK as THE MEDICI QUEEN) traces the evolution of Catherine de Medici - great-granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent - from an unloved, timid orphan to France's most cunning monarch, often blamed for the horrific 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. From childhood, Catherine is troubled by bloody visions of her adopted country's evil future, a future she struggles to prevent by practical and occult means. Three times she consults with the astrologer Nostradamus in an effort to learn how to prevent the coming scourge. But when she is unable to give her husband heirs to the French throne, she resorts to the darkest magic possible in order to conceive - only to discover, in the end, that her most beloved child, King Henri III, will be the author of the bloodshed she so fears unless she risks her life and kingdom to destroy him.

The novel deals with occult topics, as Catherine was an avid astrologer and practitioner of magic; both she and her family insisted that she was given to eerily prophetic dreams.

In broader terms, THE BLOODIEST QUEEN is the tale of a country torn apart by religious strife and the savage internecine wars of the royal Valois, Bourbon and Guise dynasties.