Jean Findlay

We're thrilled to be launching the paperback of Jean Findlay's The Queen's Lender: winner of Hawthornden Fellowship 2017& Lavigny International Fellowship 2018, and longlisted for Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Award 2022.

Do join us in celebrating this wonderful piece of historical fiction by a renowned local author, journalist, and founder of indie publishing house, Scotland Street Press.

The Queen's Lender

'Royal court intrigue at its finest.' - Historical Writers Association

'A stunning novel about the birth of the United Kingdom that demonstrates the scholarship of the author, as well as her imaginative power.' - Richard Holloway

George Heriot, jeweller to King James VI and I, moves with the Court from Edinburgh to London to take over the English throne. It is 1603. Life is a Babel of languages and glittering new wealth. The Scottish court speaks Danish, German, Middle Scots, French and Latin. King James gives Shakespeare his first secure position, and to calm the perfidious religious tensions, he commissions his translation of the Bible. George becomes wealthier than the king as he creates a fashion for hat jewels and mingles with Drummond of Hawthornden, Ben Johnson, Inigo Jones and the mysterious ambassador Luca Von Modrich... However both king and courtier bow before the power invested in their wives.

About Jean Findlay

Jean Findlay was born in Edinburgh and studied Law and French at Edinburgh University and theatre in Cracow, Poland. She has worked as a playwright and as a journalist has written for The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Independent, and the BBC. She is the author of Chasing Lost Time - The Life of C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, Soldier, Spy and Translator published in 2014 by Chatto & Windus, London 2014, by Vintage paperback 2015 and by FSG, New York 2015, and now Picador 2023. For writing The Queen's Lender she won a Hawthornden Fellowship 2017 and a Lavigny International Fellowship 2018.

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