I can hardly believe that I’m actually Mrs. Hank Tudor. It’s going to take a little bit of getting used to. Granted, there were five Mrs. Tudors before me, but I was married twice, too. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Still, my friends keep asking me why I married a man with such a bad track record. But it wasn’t really all his fault. Sure, he divorced Catherine so he could be with Nan. We all know that story. How she was Catherine’s assistant and she turned his head. But he was really in love with her, for years—until he wasn’t. I don’t know too much about Jeanne, his third wife. She died after giving birth to Ted. You don’t think about women dying in childbirth anymore, but it does happen. I wonder sometimes if he’d still be married to her if she hadn’t died. When he talks about her, he’s wistful and sad. And then there was Anna. She was really a business transaction; he wanted to buy her newspaper company and Tom Cromwell convinced him that marrying her would make the merger easier. He should have known better. I’m glad to see Anna settled in with her wife, Joan, these days. After Anna, there was Caitlyn. She was a trainwreck, and part of my job as Hank’s assistant was to smooth out the scandals. I knew it wouldn’t last. She’s always been in love with Culpepper. But Hank wants what Hank wants and he was dealing with a midlife crisis.

Now he’s married to me. We had a quiet wedding at City Hall and an elegant dinner afterward with family. We left the children with Anna and Joan and went back to the penthouse. We’ve been there for two weeks, and it’s been incredibly romantic. Surprisingly, Hank hasn’t done much work. Just some phone calls here and there, but for the most part, he’s devoted his time to me. I know I shouldn’t expect that going forward. I’m not naïve.

At the moment, though, we’re on our way to Anna’s. Hank got the phone call a little while ago, and he called the limo and Tom and Lindsey, his new assistant. It’s not too far to Greenwich, and we’ll have to do some damage control.

See, there’s a body, and it’s not the first time, either.

An Inconvenient Wife, A Modern Tudor Mystery
Genre: Domestic Suspense
Release: April 2024
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

This astonishing crime novel—inspired by the Tudor era—takes the reader into the world of Kate Parker, who has just married billionaire Hank Tudor when a headless body is discovered near their summer home . . .

Kate Parker knows what she’s getting into when she marries billionaire businessman Hank Tudor—she’s his sixth wife, after all, and was by his side (as his assistant) when his fifth marriage to actress Caitlyn Howard fell apart.

But honeymoon plans go awry when a headless body is discovered near Hank’s summer home, forcing Kate to contend with two more of his exes: Catherine Alvarez—the first—who lives as a shut-in with her computers, carefully following Tudor Enterprises; and Anna Klein—the fourth—who runs a bed-and-breakfast where she and her wife keep a steady eye on things—particularly Hank’s children, Lizzie and Teddy.

In this clever and suspenseful reimagining of Tudor era betrayals, these three women become entwined in a deadly game of cat and mouse—with each other, Hank, and Hank’s brilliant fixer, Tom Cromwell—as Kate seeks to solve the puzzle of who the murdered woman is, who killed her, and whether her death has any connection to the other headless body from eight years ago.

About the author
Karen E. Olson is the author of the Annie Seymour and Tattoo Shop mysteries and the Black Hat thrillers. She won the Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award at Mysterious Press for her first book, Sacred Cows, and her fourth book, Shot Girl, was a Shamus finalist. Her new book is An Inconvenient Wife, a modern retelling of Henry VIII and his wives as a crime novel. She was a longtime newspaper journalist and an editor at Yale. She and her husband, a freelance journalist, are empty nesters and live in Connecticut with their ginger cat Seamus.