ARC Review: The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton by Jennifer N. Brown

The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton
Author: Jennifer N. Brown
Publication: St. Martin's Press (April 14, 2026)

Description: A dual-timeline murder mystery set in an English country manor, when an ambitious professor discovers the long-lost manuscript of a Reformation-era prophetess

Historian Alison Sage has made a groundbreaking archival discovery―she found a manuscript containing the prophecies of a 16th century nun, Elizabeth Barton. Barton’s prophecy condemning Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn led to her execution and the destruction of all copies of her prophecies―or so the world believed.

With Alison’s discovery, she is catapulted to academic superstardom and scores an invitation to the exclusive Codex Consortium, a week of research among a select handful of fellow historians at a crumbling manor in England, located next to the ruins of the priory where Elizabeth herself once lived.

What begins as a promising conference turns into a nightmare as the eerie house becomes the site of a murder. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect, and it seems that answers lie at the root of a local legend about centuries-old hidden treasure. Alison’s research makes her best-suited to solve the mystery―but when old feelings resurface for a former colleague, and the stakes of the search skyrocket, everyone's motives become murky.

Alison’s cutthroat world of academia is almost as dangerous as Elizabeth Barton’s sixteenth-century England, where heretics are beheaded, visions can kill, and knowing who to trust is a deadly art. The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton is a thrilling novel, crackling with the voices of the past and propelled by a mystery that will leave readers in suspense until the very last page.

My Thoughts: The Lost Book of Elizabeth Brown in a dual timeline murder mystery. It begins in 1525 when farmhand Elizabeth Barton has a vision. When that vision comes true, the local priest is called in. He calls in a more superior priest who is determined to use Elizabeth in the fight to keep Henry VIII from abandoning the Catholic Church is his quest for divorce. 

Elizabeth is taken to a local convent where she is interviewed by Edward Bocking who becomes her spiritual advisor and the one who writes down Elizabeth's visions with a lot of editorializing of his own. Political turmoil ensues and Elizabeth winds up convicted of treason, tortured and hanged to death. She could have just been a footnote in history except Dr. Allison Sage discovers one copy of the book Bocking wrote and attributed to Elizabeth buried in an archive in Brussels. 

Allison writes her book about Elizabeth which gives her academic prestige and brings her to the attention of others who have their own reasons to be interested in Elizabeth's life. Allison is invited to a small academic concordance in a house on the land where Elizabeth's convent was. Old myths have kept alive the story that the nuns and the local Catholic family gathered wealth and buried it for the day when Catholicism would rule in England again. The treasure has never been discovered but they think Allison might have the clues in Elizabeth Barton's book that will uncover it. 

Allison is surprised and more than a little dismayed to find an old lover at the conference. She is even more surprised when he seems to be too interested in the myths of wealth. When the creepy houseman is murdered and her old boyfriend is attacked, Allison finds herself in a lot of danger as she tries to untangle the mystery. 

I liked the way the book alternated between Elizabeth's timeline and Allison's. Both were interesting in their own right. It is clear that Ms. Brown is a medieval scholar who specializes in material written by and about women. I learned a lot about the time of Henry VII and his heirs. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.