Today, I am delighted to host my good friend and fellow historical author, Elizabeth St.John, for the blog tour for her new release, The Queen’s Tears. Elizabeth has kindly provided an excerpt for you to enjoy (see below).
You can follow the full tour here:
Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2026/09/blog-tour-the-queens-tears-by-elizabeth-stjohn.html
The Queen’s Tears by Elizabeth St.John
Blurb:
A stolen crown jewel and an enigmatic portrait force two women to confront the devastating choices they made for love—and summon the courage to live with the truth.
1619: Barbara, Lady Villiers, at the bidding of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, has stolen the dying Queen Anna’s jewels—and kept the greatest prize for herself. The Queen’s Tears, a brooch of extraordinary value, torments her: too dangerous to sell, too priceless to discard, and possibly her only means of securing her children’s future. When the family fortunes are shattered, Barbara faces an impossible choice: remain loyal to Buckingham—or betray him by confessing the theft to King Charles.
Present Day: Julia Darke opens her Cotswolds bookshop to start life over peacefully. Instead, a Van Dyck portrait of Barbara’s daughter, with tantalising signs of the missing Queen’s Tears hidden in plain sight, brings her face-to-face with Oliver Villiers, the Oxford art conservator she once loved and walked away from.
Reluctantly drawn together to uncover Barbara’s secret, Julia and Oliver follow the trail of the Queen’s Tears—and the closer Julia comes to Barbara’s truth, the harder it becomes to hide from her own.
Inspired by the true stories of Queen Anna of Denmark’s stolen jewels and a missing Van Dyck painting, The Queen’s Tears weaves history, fiction, and family research across the centuries. Readers of The Lydiard Chronicles will find old favourites—and a new heroine following in their footsteps.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: https://geni.us/TheQueensTears
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Excerpt :
A rainy Monday morning in the present
Julia opened the front door to a rainstorm transforming Burford’s narrow street into the Cotswold equivalent of a Ritz-Carlton spa shower. Water drenched her from all directions. Beowulf, her beloved rescue Newfie, sniffed the air and shuffled into the downpour, while Julia hopped across the gurgling stream flooding the kerb—but not before lifting her face to the sky and letting the fragrant rain needle her cheeks. Better than a facial any day.
Bliss. After years of New York City-tainted springs, this was why she’d come home.
She pulled up the collar of her raincoat, jammed on her hat, and marched up The Hill. “It’s all right for you,” she said to Beowulf’s broad, rain-sparkling back, “you’ve got four-wheel drive.”
He obligingly stopped at his usual patch of grass, greeted his two Westie friends, Mutt and Jeff, and splashed his way to the front door of the Bull, where he was guaranteed a warm welcome and a breakfast sausage from the landlord. The fifteenth-century coaching inn was Julia’s favourite pub in the entire world, for where else would you find a recording of Dylan Thomas reading poetry in the loo or a life-sized Ziggy Stardust portrait in the boot room?
“Morning, Julia,” called the landlord. “Nice weather for ducks.”
“Hey Roy,” she replied. “And Newfies. He’s got webbed feet for a reason.”
He laughed, gave Beowulf his banger, and waved them on. She relished these moments, these snippets of banter that sustained her every day and reminded her of how homesick she’d been in the States, how much she’d compromised without knowing it. Have a nice day had its place, and she loved the warmth of her New York friends. She’d just been starved of English humour.
Finishing their walk around the back alleys of Burford, Julia had a moment of pure joy as her cottage and shop came into view. She’d never had this sense of belonging in the city. Fishing her key from her pocket, she jiggled the lock, shouldered the door open, and grabbed the towel to dry Beowulf’s paws before threading between the bookshelves, igniting the log burner, and curling into her spot in the bay window’s cosy armchair.
Julia relished this early morning routine before the shop opened. Her laptop sprang awake, electric blue against the amber firelight, as she checked her bids on first editions and the art feed on Stuart-era portraits. They had limited value except to the colourful circle of writers, readers, academics, and reenactors she’d cultivated since opening the Second Chance Bookshop a year ago. She embraced every single moment of her new life after fifty. Really. Emphasis on single. Friends in New York had accused her of running away. She assured them she was running to. England. Home.
“Okay, eBay, what do you have for me today?”
She hurriedly tapped the keys, eager to see if the latest bid she’d placed on an early edition of Aphra Behn’s Ten Pleasures of Marriage—ha!—had been accepted. Instead, she froze and leaned towards her screen, where the results of her daily arts-and-heritage feed glowed.
A woman’s face stared back at her, clouded through a patina of age, a slight smile on her full lips. Almond eyes teased under delicate brows; a curling lovelock confirmed her early Stuart origin. A gown of what appeared to be red satin cascaded from her sloped shoulders, and her left hand delicately rested on a stone ledge, caressing what looked like three white roses. Or cauliflowers. Hard to make out, there was so much dirt on the canvas.
The painting was badly in need of cleaning, probably a full conservation. But even through the tarnishing of centuries, the woman’s personality was captivating.
Author Bio:
Elizabeth St.John’s acclaimed historical fiction brings to life her ancestors—remarkable women linked to England’s royalty—offering unique insights into Medieval, Tudor, and Stuart times. Her novels unfold not just as traditional series, but as an interlocking web of lives: The Lydiard Chronicles—including the celebrated The Lady of the Tower—The Godmother’s Secret, and The King’s Intelligencer explore everything from the English Civil War to the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. Her newest novel, The Queen’s Tears, a dual timeline pursuing a stolen crown jewel, reunites favourite characters from the seventeenth-century with a present-day bookstore owner heroine.
At the heart of her writing is the transformation of real ancestral histories into narratives of historical continuity. She follows threads of legacy through generations, guided as much by wills, letters, portraits, country churches, ruined castles, manor houses, and lost gardens as by imagination. Locations become constant companions through time, while characters whisper across centuries—their decisions resonating in the lives of their descendants to reveal how choices shape legacies. Grounded in historic sites like Lydiard Park and the Tower of London, her work creates a living archival flow that continues to flourish as the past yields its secrets.
Elizabeth divides her time between California, England, and the past, surrounded by books, gardens, and animals, with a slightly bewildered, ever-supportive husband beside her.
Author Links:
Website: https://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/
Twitter / X: https://x.com/ElizStJohn
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethJStJohn/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethjstjohn/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/elizabeth-st-john
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@elizabethjstjohn
Amazon Author Page: https://geni.us/AmazonElizabethStJohn
Goodreads: https://geni.us/GoodreadsElizStJohn
Leave a Reply