'The author will have a riot on her hands when people reach the last page of this book - readers will be so anxious for the second book in the trilogy to be published. Gloria McAuley, the fi rst person ever to read this book If Chaucer was your brother-in-law; William Wycliffe your good friend; and the most powerful man in England - John of Gaunt, the great Duke of Lancaster - was your lover . . . what would your life be like? Katharine de Roet is one of the most enigmatic women in history; and yet she sat at the centre of some of the greatest changes the world has known. Intrigue, betrayal, and intimate connections with some of the greatest minds of not just her own times, but of all recorded history, was the daily stuff of her life. But for all that, the essence of Katharine's life was a love story, and the story of John of Gaunt and Katharine Swynford is truly one of the great love stories of history. At the age of seventeen Carol Sargeant read Anya Seton's lovely novel 'Katherine' and was so moved by it that she started a 30 year research project to answer a single question. The question was 'what really happened'; what is John of Gaunt and Katharine Swynford's story? If Katharine had not said yes to love, the Tudor dynasty would not have existed, George Washington would not have been there to fi ght for American independence, and Alfred Lord Tennyson would not have written his famous poetry. And that is just the story of some of her descendants. More important is the story of the woman and the world she knew."