'Brandis shows us the private story as well as the public one, by taking us into the houses and estates of the Percy family. Like Marion Fowler, in her portrait of the Blenheim Palace of the Marlborough family, Brandis stoops to conquer. She shows us the stuff of daily life among people of every class and transforms the dust of history into the texture of human existence and passion. This epic canvass is bound together and animated by one superb creation: Elizabeth.'

Marianne Brandis was born in the Netherlands in 1938 and came to Canada in 1947. After earning her BA and MA from McMaster University, she worked in radio and taught at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now University) before becoming a full-time writer. Most of her work has a historical element. She is the author of award-winning historical fiction and has also written biography and memoirs. Pursuing her interest in the relations between people and their surroundings, she has researched and written about Toronto's ravines, environmental and social issues in Malawi, and urban design and planning projects in her current hometown of Stratford, Ontario.

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