Star of Mercia: Historical Tales of Wales and the Marches

Ethelfrith, daughter of the fearsome King Offa, has never had the luxury of choosing her own future. As the young princess of Mercia walks the grounds of her father's court on the day she will meet her betrothed, Ethelbert of East Anglia, she carries the weight of a kingdom's ambitions on her shoulders. The August fields blaze with life, yet Ethelfrith feels only the cold machinery of political alliance turning around her. When she finally meets Ethelbert, his unexpected kindness cracks something open in her, forcing her to confront the terrible bargain she has been raised to accept: that a princess's heart is a small price for territorial peace. Set against the mist-shrouded borderlands between Wales and Mercia, where ancient Celtic traditions clash with the rising power of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, this early 20th-century novel weaves romance, courtly intrigue, and the myths of early Britain into one girl's painful awakening to womanhood.