Nell Coleman

The Puppet Players Nell Coleman

Hunted by the authorities and denounced by the church, Hannah, Tabby and Una use their considerable ingenuity to keep a whisker's length away from trouble as they travel the green roads of England with their bawdy puppet plays. Until Hannah meets the charismatic and mysterious MARTIN. Used to the easy ways of sex on the road, she finds Martin's gentlemanly rejection of her advances galling, and his reason - that he is one of William Cecil's intelligencers - a feeble excuse. Their further meetings become fraught with both desire and irritation as he refuses to give in to his feelings and despite the trouble that seems to be following the company, she refuses to accept his warnings. Only after Tabby is mistaken for her and put in the stocks by a fanatical religious group, does she admit that Martin is right and that the secret society that is pursuing him, is using her to draw him into the open. Weaving a dangerous path between the worlds of puppetry, politics, witchcraft and religion, it takes a clever trick by Hannah and the sacrifice of Old Angus, Tabby's beloved horse, to rescue Martin and bring the story to a just but violent conclusion.