Books by Ellen Foster

Book seven of the Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries. The Lady Apollonia's household in the village of Aust discovers a seriously ill gentleman collapsed at the cottage door of the manor's forester. Assuming his care, the Lady learns that he is court physician to King Henry IV who is rumored to be suffering from serious illness. A malevolent Sicilian Count Dravini had wormed his way into the court of King Henry but is furiously insulted when he is thrown out of the court by an act of parliament against foreigners serving the monarch. Lady Apollonia is convinced that Dravini and his henchman are hired by some in the English nobility who have rebelled against King Henry. As a known supporter of King Henry, the Lady is forced to face a series of attacks against her while proving the innocence of one who seeks her protection.

The thrice widowed vowess, Lady Apollonia of Aust, brought her servants with her to Glastonbury in early February, 1397, to help her widowed son and his three small children. In Glastonbury, the Lady and her party were overpowered by the dominating presence of the abbey and the extraordinary legends which defined it. While Apollonia and her household settled in her son's home, they were unaware of the arrival of two Druids from Ireland who came to accomplish a mysterious purpose. When a brutal murder is discovered on the market place of Glastonbury, the orphaned son of the murdered woman is brought into the Lady's household. Apollonia becomes aware that her son's home will be robbed while he is away serving King Richard II. The Lady is at the centre of the investigation of the murder to determine the connexion between local crime and certain priests. She also embraced a number of ancient Celtic truths revealed by the Druids, defining the town of Glastonbury and the mysterious rocky peak called the Tor.

A Lady Apollonia Mystery by Ellen Foster. In this novel set in Geoffrey Chaucer's England, the year is 1380 and winter is approaching. The Lady Apollonia of Aust is living in Devon while her three younger sons attend Exeter's cathedral school. Her husband, the franklin Edward Aust, is required to be in London while the Lady works with his steward to manage their family's expanded investments in Devon's growing wool trade. Lady Apollonia encounters a mysterious aura of antagonism, hovering amidst the guild members of Exeter whom she meets. Inside the Cathedral Close, she realizes that threats against the dean and chapter have already begun to appear within the chapels of the great church. Lady Apollonia not only seeks to understand the meaning of a green man but also to determine why foliate faces, used to corrupt official pardons of the church, should remain her best clues to discover the truth of a plague of intimidation and death infecting all classes of the city.

The Lady Apollonia of Aust, medieval sleuth and wealthy daughter of an earl, faces widowhood for the third time. She chooses to guarantee her sovereignty by vowing to become a Bride of Christ, declaring that she will live a nun's life but remain in the world. Her household takes up residence in Cirencester. There they encounter an ongoing power struggle between the local Augustinian Abbey and the townspeople. After centuries of the abbot's declaration of being lord of the manor, the people of Cirencester search for ways to stop the abbey's abuses of power against the town. Upon her arrival the Lady learns that, in the absence of the abbot, the abbey is being run by its prior, an evil living canon. He is known to abuse his power as a manipulative predator without a shred of human compassion or call to Christian ministry. Lady Apollonia is not only forced to deal with murder, she finds herself under attack by one whose muddled mind regards her as the source of evil.