Headline Review to publish 'captivating' new Tudor series from Weir

Headline Publishing Group has acquired the Tudor Rose series from Alison Weir, which will span three generations of the Tudor family. 

Mari Evans, managing director, and Frankie Edwards, commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Julian Alexander at the Soho Agency. The series will be launched in May 2022 with a "bold campaign that will delight Weir’s devoted readers and ambitiously engage a whole generation of new ones".

The first book, Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose, will be a "groundbreaking" novelisation of the monarch's life, while the second is a "unique take on Henry VIII as you’ve never seen him before" and the third will centre on Mary I. 

Edwards said: "With her unique blend of sparkling, authentic history and intimate tales of women’s lives lived, Alison Weir envelops you in the world of the Tudors. There’s so much we don’t know about these figures who defined so much of English history – even Henry – and Alison is the only novelist who can bring these riveting stories truly to life."

Weir is the author of 12 historical novels and 19 history books. Her bestselling Six Tudor Queens series concluded with Katharine Parr, which was published by Headline Review in May this year. The six-book series has sold just over 167,000 copies via Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market in the UK, with lockdown sales unavailable. 

She commented: "I am thrilled to be revisiting in fiction the ever-compelling stories of the Tudors, to be looking at three generations – mother, son, daughter – and the threads that link them. After the Six Tudor Queens novels, I was eager to write from Henry VIII’s point of view. I'm delighted to tell not only his story, but also those of his mother, Elizabeth of York, and his daughter, Mary I, often known as Bloody Mary. Elizabeth played a huge part in shaping Henry, who inherited not only his crown from her, but also her dynastic links. But for her sex, Elizabeth would have reigned over England; it was left to Mary, her granddaughter, to rule as the first English queen regnant. My warmest thanks go to the wonderful team at Headline for making it possible for me to continue recounting the amazing tales of the Tudors."