Download The Serpent's Tale AudioBook Free
Ariana Franklin combines the best of modern forensic thrillers with the crisis of historical fiction in the enthralling second book in the Mistress of the Fine art of Loss of life series, having middle ages heroine Adelia Aguilar.
Rosamund Clifford, the mistress of King Henry II, has died an agonizing loss of life by poison-and the king's estranged queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, is the excellent suspect. Henry suspects that Rosamund's murder is probably the first move around in Eleanor's long-simmering plot to overthrow him. If Eleanor is guilty, the result could be civil battle. The king must once again summon Adelia Aguilar, mistress of the artwork of death, to discover the reality.
Adelia is not happy to be called out of retirement. She's been living contentedly in the countryside, looking after her infant little girl, Allie. But Henry's summons can't be dismissed, and Adelia must again get together with the king's respected fixer, Rowley Picot, the Bishop of St. Albans, who's also her baby's daddy.
Adelia and Rowley happen to be the murdered courtesan's home, in a tower within a walled labyrinth-a peculiar and sinister place from the exterior, but far more so on the within, in which a bizarre and gruesome breakthrough awaits them. But Adelia's exploration is cut brief by the looks of Rosamund's rival: Queen Eleanor. Adelia, Rowley, and the other associates of her small get together are used captive by Eleanor's henchmen and held in the nunnery of Godstow, where Eleanor is holed up for the winter with her band of mercenaries, awaiting the right instant to establish their rebellion.
Isolated and captured inside the nunnery by the snow and cold, Adelia and Rowley watch as lifeless bodies begin piling up. Adelia has learned that there may be more than one killer at the job, and she must unveil their true identities before Great britain is once again plunged into civil battle . . .
