Star-crossed love, gothic pageantry, and vengeance carved into stone
Catherine Mathis opens her Queens of Portugal Trilogy with a story that is as haunting as it is beautiful. Inês will take you straight into 14th-century Portugal, where love and power are always on a collision course. It’s a book full of candlelit chapels, smoky council rooms, bloody battlefields, and a romance that defied a king.

At the heart of the novel is Pedro, heir to the throne, and Inês de Castro, the woman whose very existence threatened dynasties. Their love story is fought for in courts, on battlefields, and finally carved in stone. Pedro is portrayed with both passion and obsession, while Inês is far more than a tragic legend: she’s a mother, a strategist, and a survivor. Together, they burn bright in a world determined to tear them apart.

The book doesn’t shy away from the darker turns of history. The murder at Santa Clara is quick and devastating, the posthumous coronation at Alcobaça is macabre and unforgettable, and Pedro’s revenge against Inês’s killers is both chilling and strangely satisfying. Mathis balances pageantry with raw physical detail—you’ll smell the incense and blood, feel the weight of stone and steel, and hear the vows that echo long after they’re sworn.

This isn’t just a romance. It’s court intrigue, dynastic struggle, plague years, and gothic theater all rolled into one. The story asks what makes power real. Is it love, bloodlines, or the oaths sworn in front of witnesses? And it shows how memory can outlive even the grave when a love is strong enough to defy kings.

Inês is sweeping, tragic, and unforgettable. It’s the perfect read for anyone who wants their historical fiction with passion, politics, and just the right touch of the eerie. As the first volume of the trilogy, it sets the stage for more epic intrigue.

Tropes & Vibes

Star-crossed lovers bound by secret vows
Court intrigue with a ruthless fixer
Gothic pageantry: corpses enthroned, vows sworn in vaulted stone, vengeance as performance
Found family and contested heirs, with children’s futures hanging in the balance
Love versus duty, entwined with the spectacle of power

While on vacation in Portugal, Catherine Mathis was gripped by a story that wouldn’t let go of her imagination: a 14th century king had his dead wife crowned queen and forced the court to pay her homage to fulfill a promise. Mathis’s unrelenting curiosity about this peculiar deed and the couple known as Iberia’s Romeo and Juliet led to untold hours of research and the publication of her debut novel: Inês.
With intricate detail and world building, Mathis brings to life the captivating tale of a forbidden love, along with the intrinsic danger of being born into the highest realm of a kingdom. Pedro, heir to the throne of Portugal, is attracted at first sight to the beautiful Inês, and with good reason. A daughter of royal blood, she is beautiful, smart, and self-assured. She is also of illegitimate birth, which eliminates her from any consideration that she can be more than a mistress to Pedro. Pedro is commanded to acquiesce to the dictates of his father, King Afonso IV, but when Pedro asserts his own desires, he puts lives at risk.
Mathis’s book covers forty years of tumultuous history (1324-1364) on the Iberian peninsula. She takes us into battle, on travels across dangerous roads, through the ravages of the plague, but most compellingly, into the court life of 14th century Portugal with its behaviors and machinations. The food, the architecture, the clothing are presented in detail, serving as a rich background to the ill-fated love of Pedro and Inês. Readers who relish a deep dive into the history of a faraway land and time will find great enjoyment in Inês. And there’s more to come: Mathis is now working on book two of the Queens of Portugal Trilogy.