The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton
A dual-timeline murder mystery set in an English country manor, when an ambitious professor discovers the long-lost manuscript of a Reformation-era prophetess.
Historian Alison Sage has made a groundbreaking archival discovery—she found a manuscript containing the prophecies of a 16th century nun, Elizabeth Barton. Barton’s prophecy condemning Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn led to her execution and the destruction of all copies of her prophecies—or so the world believed.
With Alison’s discovery, she is catapulted to academic superstardom and scores an invitation to the exclusive Codex Consortium, a week of research among a select handful of fellow historians at a crumbling manor in England, located next to the ruins of the priory where Elizabeth herself once lived.
What begins as a promising conference turns into a nightmare as the eerie house becomes the site of a murder. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect, and it seems that answers lie at the root of a local legend about centuries-old hidden treasure. Alison’s research makes her best-suited to solve the mystery—but when old feelings resurface for a former colleague, and the stakes of the search skyrocket, everyone’s motives become murky.
Alison’s cutthroat world of academia is almost as dangerous as Elizabeth Barton’s sixteenth-century England, where heretics are beheaded, visions can kill, and knowing who to trust is a deadly art. The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton is a thrilling novel, crackling with the voices of the past and propelled by a mystery that will leave readers in suspense until the very last page.
Additional information
| Genre | Historical Fiction, Thriller/Suspense, Upmarket, Women's Fiction |
|---|---|
| Age | Adult |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
| Imprint | St. Martin's Press |
| Language(s) | English |
| Format(s) | Hardcover |
| Author | Jennifer N. Brown |
| Release Date | 14 April 2026 |
| Release Month | April Releases |
About the Author
Jennifer N. Brown is from New York City and after falling in love with Chaucer in college, pursued a Ph.D. in medieval literature. Her dissertation and subsequent books and articles have mostly been about devotional literature and medieval women as authors, subjects, and patrons of literary culture in medieval Europe. She has taught medieval literature at several institutions, most recently at Marymount Manhattan College where she taught in the English and World Literatures department for over 15 years. She is currently serving as the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University in Boston, where she lives with her husband, two children and two miniature dachshunds: Athena and Apollo.
