The Long-Lost Jules is a factual mystery with a dark and romantic twist, readers are not only encapsulated by the palpable tension that surrounds Hughes’ characters, but also the feeling of familiarity as they uncover the mystery of Queen Henry VIII’s late wife’s lost baby. Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jane Elizabeth Hughes’s The Long-Lost Jules, which is out now!
She thinks he’s either a stalker, a nutcase, or a harmlessly eccentric Oxford professor. He thinks she’s the long-lost descendant of Henry VIII’s last Queen, Katherine Parr. Amy is living a cautious life as a London private banker to wealthy oil sheikhs, but her quiet solitude is upended by the sudden appearance of two people: a half-sister who is virtually a stranger to her, and Oxford don Leo. Both need something from Amy, who has been emotionally frozen for years and isn’t sure she has anything left to give. She also harbors deep secrets—as does Leo. Even so, the two join forces to investigate the mystery of Queen Katherine’s lost baby, and soon long-suppressed emotions start to surface—and enemies start to close in. As they crisscross Europe in a quest for answers, Amy and Leo find themselves in danger of losing control of their secrets, their hearts—and maybe even their lives.
EXCERPT
“Anyway,” I said, “the purpose of this lunch is for you to tell me about Jules—and why you think I’m her.”
He took one last bite, patted his mouth with a paper napkin, and then took a long swallow from his beer.
“You—Jules Seymour, I mean to say—are the last living descendant of Queen Katherine Parr and possibly the heiress to a considerable tract of rural England.”
My jaw dropped.
He grinned at me. “Now are you interested?”
Obviously, the man was a lunatic. But he was a very well-educated and interesting lunatic, so I sat back to listen to his fairy tale. After all, it was best to humor lunatics. Besides, this was much better than what I had been imagining.
“Katherine Parr was the last of Henry VIII’s wives,” Leo began. “She was one of the most interesting of his wives. Well, they were all interesting—except for poor little Catherine Howard, maybe. She was just a flighty girl, and then, of course, there’s Anne of Cleves. . . .” His voice trailed away as he stared back into history, lost in his thoughts.
“Katherine Parr,” I prompted gently.
“Oh! Yes. She was extremely well educated. A Reformist, of course. And practically a saint to put up with Henry.”
“I thought Henry VIII was really good-looking!” I protested, thinking of the handsome, well-built Jonathan Rhys Meyers in TV’s The Tudors. I had lusted after him when the series was on.
Leo smiled indulgently. “In his youth, yes, of course. But by the time he got to Katherine Parr, he was an old man, so obese
that it took six stout grooms and a purpose-built crane to heave him onto his horse. He had a weeping, open wound on his leg that had to be drained very painfully every day, and it stank to high heaven. God only knows how he and Katherine . . . well . . .”
Disappointed, I said peevishly, “Then why did she marry him?”
“My dear girl, one didn’t refuse the King of England.”
“So, what does this have to do with me?”
“Katherine had a daughter, Lady Mary Seymour.”
“Seymour?”
“Yes,” Leo said. “You will be happy to know that Katherine married for love after Henry went toes up and left her a very wealthy, handsome widow. She married a reckless scoundrel named Tom Seymour with indecent haste after Henry died, and had a baby barely a year later, at the very advanced age of thirty-five.”
A year older than I was. “Good for her,” I said.
“But poor Katherine died when the baby was only a week old, of childbed fever.”
“Oh.”
“And her useless husband, Tom, was executed for treason when the little girl, Lady Mary, was only seven months old.”
“Oh, dear.” I found myself saddened by this long-ago tragedy and pushed away the rest of my uneaten meal. Leo reached out a long arm and helped himself to some chips.
“So, what happened to the baby? I assume she was your Jules’s great-great-whatever-grandma?”
“Yes, exactly,” Leo said. “She was lost to history after her father died. Until recently, it was assumed that she died in infancy. But . . .”
Here it came. “But what?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.
“I’ve found evidence suggesting that she survived her child-hood, grew up to marry, and had a son, the many-greats-grandfather of Juliette Mary Seymour. You.”
“Not me,” I protested. “Though it would be nice.”
My iPhone dinged, reminding me that it was time to get back to the office, so I couldn’t question Leo more on his “evidence.” I had to admit that my curiosity was piqued. I knew I would be diving into Google as soon as I got home from work.
But more than anything, I had learned that Leo was nothing more or less than an eccentric Oxford don after all. When I thought about my fears, I had to smile. A historian obsessed with a long-dead queen and her progeny. How much more harmless could you get?
