John Howard and the Underlings

A fallen aristocratic teenager is forced to live on the violent streets of Tudor London. Facing betrayal, famine, freezing weather, and the vicious street gangs that terrorise the city, John Howard faces the fight of his life in order to survive and prove his innocence.

England, 1536. As the son of a rich earl, hardship is something sixteen-year-old John Howard has never known. But his privileged life descends into chaos when his vindictive stepparent accuses him of poisoning her older child. And when his father declares him guilty and prepares to banish him to France, John flees his punishment into the capital’s cutthroat alleyways.

With his fortunes turned, the now disgraced aristocrat spends his time dodging brutal gangs and evading execution in the shadows with a lowly group of exiled misfits. But the runaway young man must rise up from his dark existence to lead an attack for vengeance when two of his friends are hunted down and murdered.

Can this exiled noble save his outlawed crew from a cruel death among the cobblestones?

John Howard and the Underlings is the thrilling first book in the John Howard Tudor historical fiction series. If you like Renaissance settings, unlikely leaders, and rediscovering family, then you’ll love J.C. Jarvis’s gritty tale.