Thoughts About the Tudorverse a Decade Later

Can't stop, won't stop when it comes to a certain 16th-century dynasty

There’s no surer way to take me back to writing my first historical-fiction trilogy than spotting one of my blog posts from 2010 to 2016. This was when my head was firmly in 16th-century England, what I like to call the Tudorverse.

I sold my debut novel, a historical mystery revolving around a young Dominican novice, to Touchstone (S&S) in the summer of 2010. My then-agent told me that, in addition to getting on social media, novelists often blog to build awareness of their books. That’s all I needed to hear! I blogged on my new author website; I joined a group blog called Book Pregnant filled with other starry-eyed debuts; and I joined a second group blog with the name A Bloody Good Read: Where Writers and Readers of Historical Thrillers Talk Shop.

But it was my third group blog that saw the highest Nancy Bilyeau output by far: English Historical Fiction Authors. The Crown was set in Henry VIII’s England, a time and place I found endlessly interesting. I wanted to share the research I’d done while writing my three novels and the sometimes-contrary opinions I held about the Tudors. I wrote about all the monarchs (with some unfashionable sympathy for Queen Mary I) and their courts; the prevalence of torture; the courage of the nuns, monks, and friars exiled from their homes; and the ghostly secrets of those dissolved abbeys.

The fourth wife of Henry VIII, whom he tried to send back to Germany

Among all these posts, one soon took the lead in clicks: “Seven Surprising Facts About Anne of Cleves.” People make a lot of assumptions about Anne, not all of them correct. For example, Henry VIII never called her a “Flanders Mare.” That’s a myth. And she’s the only one of his six wives to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

I researched Anne’s life intensely, as she was a character in The Chalice. I wanted to share what I learned. I guess it worked. Debra Brown, who created the blog, used to share the monthly rankings with her large group of bloggers, and I got a kick out of how many people read my short article on Henry’s fourth queen. The last time Debra shared it, the post had reached 30,000 reads.

Years later, the group blog, while still live, had gone stagnant. People posted rarely, though the site itself still gets attention; readers delivered there through various search engines. Curious, I checked the stats myself the other day. “Seven Surprising Facts About Anne of Cleves” is the most popular of the site’s hundreds of posts and has a lifetime traffic total of 76,700 reads.

I’m not sure how to feel about this.

I stopped writing Tudor fiction with The Tapestry, the third novel revolving around Sister Joanna Stafford. Trish Todd, the book editor who acquired The Crown, had been Philippa Gregory’s American editor for years, but she left Touchstone—and me—behind. There was a period of editorial turnover. My third editor said that, once the contract for The Tapestry was signed, the publisher was glad to have published “this fine trilogy.” I had wanted to keep going past three novels, but I took the hint.

The trilogy was published in the US by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Now they are with Gallery.

The Crown and The Chalice were published in the UK by Orion Books, which reissued them with beautiful new covers in 2023.

I picked up on the fact that there was less interest in Tudor novels after Trish Todd left, and that, beyond Touchstone, that interest had dimmed throughout traditional publishing. The Crown was well reviewed by Oprah magazine and was a financial success—I still get royalty checks twice a year—and the following novels, The Chalice and The Tapestry, won awards. But it was time for Joanna Stafford to exit, stage left.

Commercial fiction, like many forms of entertainment, is subject to trends. Vampire fiction was all the rage between 2005 and 2012. But by 2015, the market was saturated and sales dipped; the undead seemed really dead. Similarly, Tudor-era historical fiction was popular from 2000 to around 2015, powered by the Showtime series The Tudors and books by Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir, and, of course, Hilary Mantel. After that, with a couple of exceptions, no book editor would acquire a Tudor novel. I wasn’t an exception.

So what did I do? I pivoted! My fourth novel was The Blue, a historical spy story set in the mid-18th century. I’ve written five more historical novels of suspense since then, set in both England and early 20th-century New York City, for other publishers. (Touchstone folded.) My latest novel, The Heiress of Northanger Abbey, set in 1820, will be published on September 1st.

Is Tudor Fiction Making a Comeback?

But then there’s the pesky matter of my Anne of Cleves blog. Why did thousands of people continue to find this article and read it if interest in the Tudors was dead? The simple fact is that enthusiasm for Tudor history is not dead. As I said, I get biannual royalties on The Crown fourteen years later, and I get reader pleas for another Joanna Stafford book all the time. When I ran a poll in my author newsletter asking which period my subscribers would like me to set my next book in, guess which century won? The sixteenth.

Some of the bloggers and influencers who were around in 2012 are still here—and thriving. Natalie Grueninger is going strong! I follow Claire Ridgeway's videos, who created the Anne Boleyn Files. A wonderful newcomer is reviewer Heidi Malagisi, with Adventures of a Tudor Nerd. And of course, historian Suzannah Lipscomb has a fantastic podcast: “Not Just the Tudors.” In fact, it could be argued that the energy that used to go into blogging about Tudor history now finds its outlet in podcasting.

What makes this interesting is that I see signs of renewed life in Tudor fiction put out by traditional publishers. In October 2025, after writing several books set in the 17th century, Philippa Gregory returned to the Tudors with Boleyn Traitor, a novel about Jane Rochford, the sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn who was herself executed. (Gregory has switched publishers, which I find interesting.) In the last two years, Alison Weir has written excellent novels about Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (The Cardinal) and Katherine Carey, the niece of Anne Boleyn and long rumored to be Henry VIII’s illegitimate daughter (The Boleyn Secret).

The family we just can’t quit.

I’m intrigued by some of the fresh approaches in this Tudor-era comeback. Tracy Borman wrote The House of Boleyn, which looks at the rise and fall of this ambitious family using the backdrop of Hever Castle, the Boleyns’ seat. Another subtrend I’ve noticed is a form of wish fulfillment playing out that rewrites history. It might have been inspired by the 2023 film Firebrand, in which Henry VIII’s last queen, Catherine Parr, leaped on the dying king (played by Jude Law!) in his royal bed and suffocated him. OK, this did not happen. But I see this same emotion power the new novels Henry Tudor Must Die, by Jillian Lane, and The Beheading Game, by Rebecca Lehman.

Check out this Bookshop.org list of the new Tudor-era novels being published to discover all the approaches being taken.

Here’s the kicker: I looked up The Crown on Amazon while I was writing this column, and to my surprise, I saw that my debut novel is being promoted! Touchstone no longer exists, but my trilogy has been absorbed by Gallery, another S&S imprint, and evidently someone decided, after years of keeping it full price, to run a one-month discount on the ebook to $1.99. That’s an 85 percent discount on the price. Whoa.

If you’d like to snag the book while it’s on this promotion, check out Amazon. And it’s reduced on Barnes & Noble’s Nook and on Apple too.

Who knows? I started a prequel/sequel to my Joanna Stafford trilogy a while ago, and perhaps I will return to that manuscript :)

Going Deeper on Folk Horror

Thank you for all the nice comments and shares on my last Substack, which delved into another one of my obsessions: folk horror. To my delight, Mike Muncer and Becky Darke, two of my absolute favorite podcasters, took a big-picture look at folk horror films in the podcast “Evolution of Horror.” When it came to explaining why these kinds of films are popular now (60-plus years after The Wicker Man), Darke said there’s pushback against technology, with a “Go touch the grass” movement being a “Folk Horror adjacent thing.” Muncer agreed, saying this is about “friction maxing,” the Gen Z desire to enjoy an album, a print book, anything that is tactile. Cooking from scratch, reading physical books, or making a phone call instead of texting—that’s the hot thing nowadays. Hey, it’s my kids who are Gen Z, not me, but I really get this.

‘Real Simple’ Taking Notice of ‘Heiress’

I am publishing my new novel, The Heiress of Northanger Abbey, in just over two weeks. It’s a nerve-wracking time, and one in which I sometimes look back at my other novels and how they fared with the public. Maybe that’s what led to this contemplation of the Tudors! I do feel a lot of my interests are connected, sometimes in unexpected ways. Way back in 2010, Trish Todd took me to lunch in Manhattan—a highlight of my nascent book career! She told me that the public’s excitement over rediscovering Jane Austen through the 1990s miniseries and movies (from the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries to Clueless) made her wonder, “What will happen when we’ve gone through all the Jane Austen novels?” Trish thought the “next thing” could be Tudor-era fiction, and thus she snapped up The Other Boleyn Girl.

Could it be that passion for the Tudors and Jane Austen are both making a comeback—if they ever in fact waned at all? Here I am, following my longtime worship of Jane Austen by writing a sequel to Northanger Abbey. I’m excited to share that Real Simple magazine put my novel on their list of Horror Books for Fall Reading. The reviewer wrote:

If you’re looking for a cozier thriller, this “sequel” to Jane Austen’s last novel may be the perfect pick. It finds Northanger Abbey heroine Catherine Tilney trying to help her daughter avoid entanglements with the very family that nearly ruined her happiness—which takes them to an isolated manor beset with secrets (and maybe vampires?). You’ll get a touch of that Austen spirit, with a Gothic mystery mixed in.

Thank you for this!