The Daisy and the Bear: A Guest Post by Karen Clark

I'm happy to welcome Karen Clark to the blog today to post about her book, The Daisy and the Bear, which is already gracing my own Kindle. In the words of Margaret of Anjou herself, "C'est une huée."*

*If Margaret of Anjou spoke American English and used Google Translate. And there's really no earthy reason why she can't do either, is there?


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Everyone knows about the complicated love life of Margaret of Anjou and the many men who have been put forward as candidates for Real Father of her son, Edward, Prince of Wales. Various generations of the Beaufort family, the Earl of Wiltshire, the Duke of Suffolk and even her husband, Henry VI, have been suggested. All this, of course, is mere conjecture, not in the least supported by any reliable source. It could almost be said that these names have been put forward to prevent history from stumbling on the right one – the Real Real Father of Margaret of Anjou’s son. It’s a 558 year old mystery…

… that has now been solved!

It wasn’t difficult to piece it all together. All I needed was an over-active imagination, a complete lack of scruples and the realisation that, of all the men Margaret knew or had dealings with, there was one name that was prominently – and consistently - missing from the list of her lovers.

As everyone who has ever read a work of historical romance should know, if a couple haven’t fallen in love at first sight and married in defiance of custom and a significant authority figure, they’ve fallen in love at first sight, come to a bitter impasse over something and parted ways, become bitter and implacable enemies but, some time before the last paragraph, come together again in glorious, passionate and eternal love. And that is just what happened between Margaret of Anjou and her glorious, passional and eternal lover – Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick!

In The Daisy and the Bear, I tell the story of these two unlikely lovers: their chance meeting, the joy they find in each other and their son and the destruction their thwarted love brings to England and everyone they know.

Through this heady tale is woven the story of Warwick’s brother, John, and the two great loves of his life; the sweet and enduring passion that exists between the frail and angelic® Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Warwick’s daughter (and prawn) Anne. You’ll also be delighted to know that I haven’t forgotten the Most Beautiful Woman in England, or Warwick’s other prawn, Isobel, and her unbalanced and difficult husband, George, Duke of Clarence. Young Ned, tall, handsome, libidinous king, and his witchy Woodville wife; the taciturn and hardbitten Earl of Salisbury; the noble Duke of York; various scheming and amoral Dukes of Somerset; the pathetically mad king Henry VI… They’re all there, the Yorkists you love and the Lancastrians you hate.

But it’s Warwick and Margaret who take centre stage, as well they should, for theirs is a timeless tale, untold until now, that simply screamed to be written and hollers to be read.

This is the Wars of the Roses like it’s never been told before. And it’s at least as historically accurate as some of the least historically accurate, award winning novels available in Leading Bookstores.

Available at Lulu.com (in paperback) for $14.99 (cover art by Jesse Watson)

Or on Kindle through Amazon ($7.99)

My thanks to Susan for inviting me to visit her blog, it’s such a nice place to be!

For more (and more historically sound) on the Nevills, feel free to drop by my blog: A Nevill Feast.