Released on Valentine’s Day 2022, with a second edition in July 22, The Queen’s Lender was, in its writing phase, the Winner of a Hawthornden Fellowship. This placed the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden and his evening with Ben Jonson well into the narrative. It is the funniest part of the book and needs a theatre performance to do it justice. For writing it also won a Lavigny International Writer’s Fellowship in Switzerland in 2019. After publication the book was long listed for the Historical Writer’s Association Debut Crown Award. It has since sold rights and will be translated in to Czech.
Much was written about the book before its release and in particular this extended essay in The International Literary Quarter
And this article on its inspiration Love, Death and Jewellery
Buy the book here
‘With a wonderful insight into life in 17th-century Edinburgh and London, The Queen’s Lender is about power, suspicion, religious strife, persecution, and conspiracy. Fast-paced, informative, gripping and beautifully written, seen through the turbulent years of the reign of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Royal court intrigue at its finest.’
– Historical Writers Association
‘A joy to read. In George Heriot – Edinburgh goldsmith, royal jeweller, and philanthropist – Findlay has found an everyman through whom we all get access to the weird world of royalty. Her novel captures the domestic wit and warmth, alongside the casual brutality of the court of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Beautifully pitched between the homeliness and the haughtiness of the Shakespearean era – and often very funny.’
– Sarah Fraser, author of The Prince who would be King.
‘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
‘Findlay excels in conveying the nature of a place, be it the Queen’s own private chamber, an Edinburgh close, a fragrant garden, or a claustrophobic cabin in a ship at sea. We are there, we smell the flowers and the fish, we see the vomit.’
-Rosemary Kay, The Edinburgh Reporter
‘Jean Findlay is a master wordsmith and the novel’s storyline is revealed at breakneck speed. The text ascends to the condition of poetry… Every politician in Scotland’s Parliament should read this unforgettable novel. It should be required reading for every Scottish schoolchild.’