Pale Mistress : Lover. Courtesan. Survivor.

Author: Naomi Kelsey

Thriller / suspense

Published on 16 July 2026 by HarperCollins Publishers (HarperNorth) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 336 pages
240 x 159 | 580g

“Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak…”

Cyprus, 16th century. Murder, lies and vengeance has left lovers dead, promises broken and no one to trust. Only one woman survives, Bianca.

The slain? History knows their names: Emilia, Desdemona, Othello.

But why do we not know Bianca? Who was the pale mistress? Liar or lied to? Instigator or victim? In telling one woman’s story, Naomi Kelsey dazzlingly recasts a Shakespearean tragedy as a psychological thriller of jealousy and gaslighting, ambition and envy, and the making and breaking of one of Shakespeare’s most notorious villains, Iago.