Book Title: The Duty of Daughters

Series: Falling Pomegranate Seeds

Author Name: Wendy J. Dunn

Publication Date:  November 17, 2019

Publisher: Poesy Quill

Pages: 310

Genre: Historical Fiction

Any Triggers: Adult themes and situations.

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Book Title and Author Name:

The Duty of Daughters

El Deber de Las Hijas (Spanish version)

by Wendy J. Dunn

Blurb:

Castile, 1490.

Doña Beatriz Galindo is an uneasy witness to the Holy War of Queen Isabel of Castile and her husband, Ferdinand, King of Aragon. A holy war pushing the Moors out of territories ruled by them for centuries.

Beatriz does not want a life like other women. She desires power over her own destiny. Even if this means walking a far harder road.

A passionate and respected scholar, Beatriz serves her friend Queen Isabel of Castile as her advisor. She also tutors the queen’s youngest child, Catalina of Aragon.

Dedicated to Queen Isabel and her children, Beatriz guides the young Catalina of Aragon to walk her own hard life road.

But can she prepare Catalina to be England’s queen?

Excerpt 1:

Firelight flickered, glinting upon the gold, silver and jewel-decorated vessels set upon a nearby table. Beatriz stepped into deeper shadows, where no candle or firelight reached, seeking not to be noticed. Her eyes rested on the royal family. The queen’s blessing done, Catalina clambered onto her mother’s bed and kissed her cheek. The queen wound her arms around her youngest child. She laughed softly, caressing Catalina’s hair.

Prince Juan, Catalina’s twelve-year-old brother, dropped his harp on the bed. His blue eyes glowing with mischief, he tickled his sister’s underarm. She giggled, nestling into him. The prince stood on the threshold between pretty boy and beautiful youth. Blond down intermixed with a darker, thicker colour upon his cheeks. He tickled Catalina again. The child giggled.

“Stop it, Juan!”

Juan laughed. He flicked back the straight fringe from his eyes before reclaiming his harp and plucking a short tune. The black velvet of his doublet increased the bright blond lustre of his hair, candlelight creating an aureole around his head. Angel, his mother called him. Prince Juan well deserved his nickname. All loved him. “Your command is mine! What song shall I play you, sister?” asked the prince.

The queen’s smile embraced them both. She rested her fingers on her son’s arm. He returned a gaze full of love.

“Son, not yet. I want to first speak to Catalina.” She encircled her daughter with her arms, drawing her closer. “Mi chiquitina, can you remember what happened two years ago?”

Catalina looked up, bewildered. “Mamá?”

The queen sighed. Her jaw slackening, she no longer smiled. A candle gusted out, casting her face into deep shadow. Communing as if with the unseen, she tightened her hold on her daughter.

“I forget – ‘tis long for a small child to remember… In truth, you were little more than an infant when the English came and I, holding you on my lap, showed you the bulls.” The queen smiled slightly. “You wore your first gown of black velvet that day, one rich with jewels. The next day we promised you to their prince.” She looked again at Catalina and stroked her hair. Wrapping a lock around her finger, she studied it and let it go, her face becoming strong again. “I have just received word from your father. We have promised another of our hijas to another king’s son. My Isabel?”

Princess Isabel playfully peered over the book. “Mamá?”

“Come, and tell your sister your news.”

Isabel strode over to the bed with all the grace and confidence of a young woman of twenty. She sat on the other side of her mother’s wide bed and took Catalina’s hand. “I’m to be wed.”

Catalina cried out and threw herself into her sister’s arms, pulling at the long chain of Isabel’s heavy, gold crucifix. Princess Isabel’s laugh overlaid the silence of the other occupants in the queen’s chamber. Disentangling herself from her sister, she said, “Be careful, Mi chiquitina.”

“Married! But to whom?”

“Can’t you guess?” Isabel laughed, but didn’t wait for Catalina to answer. “I’m marrying Prince Alfonso of Portugal. One day he’ll be Portugal’s king, and I its queen.”

Queen Isabel gazed at her eldest and youngest daughters with cheerless eyes. “Isabel, I hoped that service for your sister, María, many years hence. Whilst your father, before he owned to the French king’s treacherous heart, wished you wed to the French prince, I wanted so much to find you a husband of suitable birth to keep you with us in Castilla. You are my first born, after all. But Alfonso remembers you too well from the time when you both were hostages together. He wants you, and only you.”

Princess Isabel smiled, stretching out her hand to her mother. The queen clasped it and held it against her cheek. Catalina’s wide eyes travelled from her mother to her sister. “You’re leaving us?”

Isabel’s eyes shone with sudden tears. “I must, mi chiquitina.”

Catalina wrapped her arms around her sister. “Don’t go, I beg you!”

Over her head, Isabel the mother and Isabel the daughter gazed at one another. Lines of pain scored deep in the queen’s white face, rending her almost ugly. She shut her bloodshot eyes, biting her bottom lip. In the heavy silence, Beatriz could hear the drum of her own heart in her ears.

The prince swung from the bed with nimble grace. Standing between María and Juana he clasped their hands. All three of them gazed at the bed.

With a short laugh, Isabel’s arms tightened around her youngest sister. “Catalina, listen. Portugal is not so far away that I cannot ever come home. In any case, I know my duty and do it willingly.”

Catalina grabbed her sister’s habito, as if she wouldn’t let her go. Isabel frowned and shook her head, not one strand of hair daring to shift from its rightful place. “When you’re older, you too will do your duty and marry your English prince. You will not fail God or your country then. I will not fail it now.”

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link – The Duty of Daughters: https://mybook.to/FPS

Universal Buy Link – El Deber de las Hijas: books2read.com/u/mVoKBA

Author Bio:

Award-winning Australian author of Tudor historical fiction, specialising in Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon novels.

Wendy J. Dunn is an award-winning Australian author, playwright and poet fascinated by Tudor history – so much so she was not surprised to discover a family connection to the Tudors, not long after the publication of her first Anne Boleyn novel narrating the Anne Boleyn story through the eyes of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder. Her family tree reveals the intriguing fact that one of her ancestral families – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. It seems likely Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally.

Her second novel, The Light in the Labyrinth, set during final days of Anne Boleyn’s life, revisits the Anne Boleyn story through the eyes of her niece Catherine Carey. The Duty of Daughters and All Manner of Things tell the story of Katherine of Aragon. Shades of Yellow tells the story of a woman writing a novel about Amy Robsart.

All Dunn’s award-winning works weave together the lyricism of poetry with the pulse of history, creating stories of love, loss, and the endurance of the human spirit.

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