Queen Anna

by Tony Riches Book 1 in the Stuart Queens Trilogy series.

First published 2026

Amazon

3.9(30)

Fifteen-year-old Anna of Denmark crosses the North Sea to marry James VI of Scotland, but violent storms turn a royal wedding journey into the beginning of a darker political education. At the Scottish court she encounters a husband fascinated by witchcraft, powerful nobles who expect access to her household and a system that can separate royal children from their mother. Anna learns that queenship requires more than ceremony: she must build allies, defend her place within the dynasty and decide when resistance is worth the cost.

The novel moves through the world of the North Berwick witch trials and onward into the succession crisis that carries James and Anna to the English throne in 1603. Anne of Denmark and James VI and I were central figures in the transition from Tudor to Stuart rule, and their marriage joined Scottish court politics to the future government of three kingdoms. Riches uses Anna’s perspective to explore the personal consequences of royal child-rearing, faction and confessional suspicion while showing how a Danish princess became queen consort of Scotland, England and Ireland.