Divorced Not Dead (This Time): A Novel of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Aragon

She died once already. This time, she remembers everything... and she won't let it happen again. January 1536. Catherine of Aragon dies alone in a freezing room at Kimbolton castle, poisoned on the order of her husband King Henry VIII, a man who tore England away from Rome because he wanted a divorce, and a son. He branded their daughter Mary as illegitimate, tore mother and daughter apart, and moved his cast-off Queen from one cold house to another colder one until her heart finally gave out from his cruelty. Then suddenly, she opens her eyes and it is nine years earlier, in the 40 year old body she had at the start of the kings "Great Matter", the divorce, with the memories of every hour of that first tragic life still whole inside her.... she makes a vow right then and there: NOT THIS TIME. She would save Mary, save England... and save herself from that dark fate.This time, Catherine will not wait for the law, for her husband, or even for God, to save her. She understands that Henry VIII is unravelling from inside his damaged mind, and he is now a man who has decided in his altered state that HE is the voice of God. His grief for the sons he could not keep has curdled into something the whole court mistakes for policy, and only Catherine sees it for what it is.The law will not save her. She already tried the law, and it killed her.She realises that the only one who can help her stop Henry is the one ally the world, and the King himself, would never suspect... Anne Boleyn, the woman known as her rival.Together, two women the court believes DESPISE each other build a treasonous conspiracy to depose an anointed King.Out of sewing circles and secrets, they work in secret for years to save their beloved kingdom from a madman before his sickness costs the realm everything, including each other. It is a war... fought with whispers and hidden ledgers. If they are ever discovered, they will both go straight to the block. But if they succeed... they will save countless lives.Everyone knows how this story ends. They're wrong. Divorced, Not Dead (This Time) reimagines the most famous divorce case in English history, that of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII from the inside out, and turns the rivalry between Anne and Catherine that everyone thinks they know, into an alliance and deep friendship that no one saw coming. For readers who love a Tudor court rendered in candlelight and the dread of the block, comes a "what if" that never once cheats on the history and how things operated in that time period. About the Author Victoria Gail Hawkins has been fascinated by the Tudor court since discovering it in high school history class in the late '90s. She lives in Saint Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in the United States, founded in 1565 during the reign of Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn's daughter, with her family and two cats. Divorced, Not Dead (This Time) is her debut novel.