Vainglory - Tapa dura

Vaingory is a sumptuous tale of obsessive love, chivalry and ambition, set in fifteenth-century France, centred upon the beautiful Chateau Gloriole and five turbulent generations of its Lords and Ladies. Victoire de Gloriole, returning from the wars with England, finds himself rewarded with bothn a fortune and a wife. The fortune enables him to claim his ancestral lands and establish himself in the Chateau of Gloriole. His wife, an English hostage seized in the fighting, will perpetuate his line by producing an heir. Victoire's good luck seems endless, he is rich and handsome, favoured by the King and loved by his wife. Only the birth of his son could increase his happiness. But Victoire has reckoned without the malice of fate and the barbarous envy around him. In his naivete he fails to see the enemies who conspire against him, who plot to steal from him his good name, his fortune and Gloriole.

Geraldine McCaughrean has written two adult novels and a string of successful and prize-winning children's books. Vainglory is her first historical saga.