Book I: Discovery

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The Story of a Courageous Woman, Book I of V

Lady Nephele’s Devilry is the story of Elizabeth of Bosnia, krstjani princess who at age 11 was taken, against her will, to become the next queen of Hungary, second wife of King Louis the Great. Despite incredible challenges, she never gave up her struggle to find self-agency in a political and religious culture that denied that agency to women.

Dr. Gregov has brought this young woman’s story to life. The five volumes of the book embed the meager known history of Elizabeth into the larger historical context of 1300s Eastern Europe and the Balkans to create a rich portrait of life in that turbulent century, a portrait that enlarges the historical narrative about Elizabeth’s life and proposes an answer to the many questions raised by recorded history. Fortunately for us, it also allows the reader to vividly imagine life in those medieval times.

In Book I – Discovery we meet the narrator of Lady Nephele’s Devilry as she is escaping from the dungeon in Novi Grad, Croatia. We learn about her life on the run from the queen’s murderer, her escape from the massacre in Zadar, her time with the Hungarian Army, and her harrowing travel across the Dinaric Alps to be reunited with her father after 37 years. We learn about her family’s secrets and her father’s stories about their family and their relocation to Visoko, Bosnia, where the Ban ordered young Nephele to be the tutor for his two daughters. When Princess Jelisaveta (Elizabeth of Bosnia) is forced to go to Hungary to become its next queen, she refuses to go without Lady Nephele and demands of Nephele a sacred oath of loyalty.