When her older sister, Lady Jane Grey, is executed in 1554 for unlawfully accepting the English crown, Lady Katherine Grey's world falls apart. Barely recovered from this tragic loss she risks all for love, only to incur the wrath of her formidable cousin Queen Elizabeth I, who sees Katherine as a rival for her insecure throne.

Interlaced with Katherine's story is that of her distant kinswoman Kate Plantagenet, the bastard daughter of Richard III. In 1483, Kate travels to London for Richard's coronation, and soon hears terrible rumors about him that threaten all she holds dear. Like Katherine Grey, she falls in love with a man who is forbidden to her.

Then Kate embarks on what will become a perilous quest, covertly seeking the truth about what befell her cousins--two young princes--who may have been victims of Richard III's lust for power. But time is not on Kate's side, or on Katherine's, who has been imprisoned. What secrets will be revealed in the notorious Tower of London?

In this rich and layered story set within a framework of fascinating historical authenticity, Katherine and Kate discover that possessing royal blood can prove to be a dangerous inheritance.