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Original poster

Is there such thing as 16th century historical fiction not fictionalising the kings and queens?

34 replies

TakesTheCake · 27/08/2017 08:39

We attended a Tudor day the other day, which really interested me in the way they lived. I am due a new book so I thought I would look around for one set in that time period (with authentic dialogue would be good!).

However, everything I find is based on the lives of the kings and queens of the period - fictionalising the life of Anne Boleyn, for example. Or William Shakespeare. CJ Sansom, Phillippa Gregory... all based on the lives of real people.

This doesn't interest me. I am just looking for a story about invented characters in that time period. Like Ken Follett but set in Tudor times. (I have read Pillars of the Earth already).

Does it exist?!

OP posts:
crazymissdaisy · 27/08/2017 09:20

Was it at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk by any chance? A Traveller in Time by Alison Utley is a children's book that's beautifully evocative, a little girl in an ordinary house but the babbington plot is happening in the background.

KeiraTwiceKnightley · 27/08/2017 09:17

A little later but Phillipa Gregory wrote a series set in America following early settlers and focused on John Tredescant (Botanist and founder of a big museum Bodleian collection? in Oxford). I enjoyed these. Book 1 is called virgin Earth iirc.

Xenophile · 27/08/2017 09:09

There's an excellent book called Five Wounds which is sold as YA, but I found that I really enjoyed as well. It's set during the time of the dissolution of the monasteries so slap bang in the era you're interested in and it is fabulously researched.

Amazon Page

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 27/08/2017 08:57

It's harder to find a publisher for things that don't have kings and queens in.

I agree you might very well get on with Shardlake despite the appearance of real people from time to time.
They are very good.

My all-time favourite, much underrated writer, Norah Lofts, was extremely good at writing about ordinary people in a way that made their everyday life exciting and highly charged. She wrote more about the 15th century than the Tudors, but her House At Old Vine trilogy, starting with The Town House, takes you from 1400 to the present with a lot on the earlier periods. That would be my top recommendation.

NataliaOsipova · 27/08/2017 08:50

Ooh - off topic - but please can I ask where the Tudor day was? My MIL is fascinated by anything like that.

thenightmanageress · 27/08/2017 08:48

Another vote for Shardlake. Loved every one of Them.

AlpacaLypse · 27/08/2017 08:46

I know they're based around the court and Cromwell and Henry VIII are characters but most of it is pretty well researched stuff touching on the reality of life in the period.

AlpacaLypse · 27/08/2017 08:45

C J Samson's Shardlake books?

GinIsIn · 27/08/2017 08:43

There are real historical characters in Pillars of the Earth though? Do you mean you want ones with a fictional protagonist? If so, some you might like although not Tudor -
'Lady of Hay' by Barbara Erskine
'The Fool's Girl' by Celia Rees