The Coffee Pot Book Club presents: The Lydiard Chronicles by Elizabeth St.John

Book Title:  The Lydiard Chronicles (A Trilogy)

Author: Elizabeth St.John

Publication Date: 2016-2020

Publisher: Falcon Historical

Genre: Historical Fiction

Any Triggers: No

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #EnglishCivilWar #FamilyHistory #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub 

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/05/blog-tour-the-lydiard-chronicles-by-elizabeth-stjohn.html 

The Lydiard Chronicles:

The Lady of the Tower (Book #1)

By Love Divided (Book #2)

Written in Their Stars (Book #3)

by Elizabeth St.John

Duty, passion, and power collide in The Lydiard Chronicles, a gripping trilogy inspired by true events. Follow three courageous women—survivors, strategists, and storytellers—who defy the constraints of society to shape their family’s fate and England’s future. Their voices echo through time. Their legacy changed a nation.

The Lydiard Chronicles is an award-winning, best-selling historical family saga which brings to life the remarkable true stories of the St.John family. Spanning three compelling novels—The Lady of the Tower, By Love Divided, and Written in Their Stars—the series follows the legacy of resilient and intelligent women who lived as spies, courtiers, and diarists during England’s most turbulent century, navigating the quicksand of love and war, political upheaval, and personal sacrifice. 

Bound by fierce family loyalty and unforgettable love, the women of The Lydiard Chronicles defy the limits of their time with passion, courage, and unshakable independence. They endure captivity in the Tower of London, exile in the Louvre Palace, and the heart-wrenching divisions of the English Civil War—fighting not just for survival, but for their beliefs, their families, and the right to choose their own fate. Meticulously researched and vividly told, this epic saga reveals how these women created history from the shadows, leaving a legacy of resilience, defiance, and enduring influence.

Rooted in original diaries, letters, and family papers, The Lydiard Chronicles offers an intimate, biographical portrait of women who moved behind the scenes of power. Serving as trusted secret agents, military wives, and confidantes of kings, they were deeply engaged in the political and religious conflicts of their time. Through tragedy and triumph, the women of The Lydiard Chronicles shape their destinies—and the fate of a nation—in this richly researched and vividly told historical epic. 

Universal Series Buy Link: https://geni.us/TheLydiardChronicles

These titles are available to read on #KindleUnlimited

Hot Summer Reads:*Each novel is priced at just 99c / 99p July 1st - 15th, 2025*

A short excerpt from Written in Their Stars

Exiled to France

Frances’s simple story of dragons sustained her as she walked along the Folkestone shore early the next morning, Walter’s guard following closely. The sea lay with an oily tint to it, flat as could be, with just a small wave lapping on the smooth sand. This was not the rough Atlantic she knew from her childhood in Devon. Her county bred navigators and explorers, dragon fighters and adventurers. And yet a squall drifting on the horizon reminded her of the presence of danger on even the calmest water. 

Daybreak melted the fog and burnished the world silver. As she walked by a half dozen one-masted fishing boats tethered to the spit of land, her spirits rose with the sun. Gulls cried as the fishermen readied their boats to catch the morning tide, and a fresh easterly breeze caressed her cheek. She waved Walter’s guard to stay out of earshot and approached the boats.

As an intelligencer, proving her resourcefulness must be a priority. And while Allen slept off the French brandy from the night before, she would take care of this next part of their journey.

“You’ll be wanting passage, my lady?” A voice broke into her thoughts. Was she that obvious?

She turned and faced a man of about Allen’s age and height, shoulder-length blond hair straggling from under a wide-brimmed hat that concealed his expression. His left sleeve was pinned to his chest, flat and empty across the front of a jacket woven of some unidentifiable cloth, beige once and now salt-stained and crusted in white. 

“Yes.” 

The man limped to the boat tied at the end of the small spit, the incoming tide nudging the vessel and rocking it gently in place. His swaying gait mimicked any seafaring fisherman, and yet Frances suspected it came from a wound sustained on a battlefield. Swinging himself on deck, the fisherman deftly sorted his net with one hand, laying it out on the narrow planks and kicking it into place with worn boots.

Holding her guard back five paces, Frances followed him and waited on the shore. The vessel looked seaworthy, solidly made and sitting evenly in the water. Painted a rust colour and thick with a pitch coat below the water line, it appeared well-maintained.

“Tide is best just before sunset,” the man replied, “if you’re not afeard of the darkening. How many are you?” 

“Two and a half.”

The man raised an eyebrow.

“One is a child. She is two.”

The man shrugged and leaned forward to untether his boat. His legs planted wide, he easily moved with the rocking of the swell. “Same risk. Same price. A crown each. Proper coinage. No useless siege money.”

This man assumed a lot and negotiated little. Frances untied the rope and threw it to him. “How can I trust you?” 

“Do you have a choice? You’re not taking a packet boat for a reason.” He caught the rope and coiled it on the deck. “My hut is the third from the end. You can wait there today, for it is safer than the town from those curious about travellers.”

As the boat bobbed away from the land, the man lifted his hand in a gesture that almost appeared a salute.

“God save our king across the sea.” The words disappeared on the morning breeze. Had she really heard them under the slap and murmur of the waves on the sand?

The boat drifted out on the morning sea. A triangular brown sail raised, and a second smaller one at the stern. Frances stood until it disappeared into the rising sun. Beyond the horizon lay France, the king, her future. After a while, she turned. Time enough for daydreaming later.

Frances could not read Allen’s expression as he gazed back towards the cliffs, rearing cream and white from the ocean itself, barricading their precious island from the turbulent sea. The last of the light lingered on the western horizon. He held Isabella tightly in his arms, tucking her inside his coat so just her head peeped out from the dark blue wool. Frances knew Allen needed to embrace his child, protect her from the dragons. As important for him as for her. 

“So we forsake England,” she mused. Unlike Allen, she left no family behind, for hers had departed this earth long ago, before the war. Yet she knew the emptiness that came with leave-takings. This loss encompassed more than family, for it included her country too. Her courage lay as a hard kernel within her heart, for emotion crushed her soul when the boat left land.

“You choose curious words.” Allen stared at the cliffs, his chin resting on Isabella’s bright curls. “We sacrifice much for England, but leaving our family to follow the king is surely not renouncing.”

“Yet we fight from a foreign land, Allen, not on our own shores. Parliament claims our country while we run away.” She was in a strange mood, fey. 

“We are not running away, Frances. We are defending our future and the future of England.” Finally, he dragged his eyes away from the cliffs, now so diminished they became one with the westerly skies. He tucked Isabella closer into his jacket and smiled. “Are you fearful tonight, my love?” 

Her heart swelled as two pairs of bright eyes regarded her, both merry and alight with excitement. Her life, her destiny. Her only family. Isabella struggled and freed her hand, a little pink starfish waving against the brown sail, squealing at the seagulls swooping over the boat.

They laughed at their daughter’s delight. If there was to be a crossing over, a voyage to the unknown such as this, then Frances could not have wished for a smoother sailing or a happier child. 

God willing, their refuge in France would be as harmonious.

***

Elizabeth St.John’s critically acclaimed historical fiction novels tell the stories of her ancestors: extraordinary women whose intriguing kinship with England's kings and queens brings an intimately unique perspective to Medieval, Tudor, and Stuart times.

Inspired by family archives and residences from Lydiard Park to the Tower of London, Elizabeth spends much of her time exploring ancestral portraits, diaries, and lost gardens. And encountering the occasional ghost. But that’s another story.

Living between California, England, and the past, Elizabeth is the International Ambassador for The Friends of Lydiard Park, an English charity dedicated to conserving and enhancing this beautiful centuries-old country house and park. As a curator for The Lydiard Archives, she is constantly looking for an undiscovered treasure to inspire her next novel.

Elizabeth's works include The Lydiard Chronicles, a family saga set in 17th-century England during the Civil War, and The Godmother's Secret, which unravels the medieval mystery of the missing princes in the Tower of London. Her latest release, The King’s Intelligencer, follows Franny Apsley in the treacherous court of Charles II as she risks everything to uncover the dangerous truth behind the discovery of the princes’ bones.

Website: https://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/

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