Historical Fiction

[kiwigirl42]

any recommendations?

I just found this book on Amazon free for kindle today - sounds like my kind of fact/ fiction mix!

I just finished Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant about a fictional Italian nunnery in 1570. It was pretty good, gave me lots of jumping off points for further reading as well.

that does look interesting ... and I can get it for £1.36 second hand delivered on Amazon ... off to peruse further. (I'm lucky that DH pays for Prime for me as I read so much - second hand books usu. far cheaper than Kindle option too)

I love books that make you read further. I read one book about Napoleonnic War in Spain (1805 ish) and ended up reading about 10 others just to get the whole story.

I shouldn't be buying any books at moment. I have lined up to read:

-The scramble for Africa

• A rumor of war (Philip Caputo)
• Bess of Hardwick
• Winter of the World (Ken Folletts latest which is a doorstop size)
• Dark Star Safari (Paul Theroux)
• Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy
• The Lost Queen (Norah Lofts)
• The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey

so that should keep me busy for a day or two! I need to get off Mumsnet and get reading I think!

It has a bibliography in the back which was one of the reasons I picked it up in the first place, so lots of books there to work through. I don't usually read huge amounts of histerical fiction because I find myself constantly wondering what is true and what is fictional. I read fantasy and post-apocalyptic fiction in between history books.

I've got a similarly large pile to read atm. I'm ploughing through Aiping Mu's Vermilion Gate about Communist China but am struggling a little. Its much less readable than Wild Swans and I'm only about 100 pages in. Luckily thats my 'upstairs book'. My 'downstairs book' is thankfully much more readable!

Margaret George - autobiography of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
Alison Weir - Innocent Traitor (lady Jane Grey)

Conn iggulden. I cannot stress enough how good his books are. The Julius Caesar ones were brilliant, but the Genghis Khan ones were even better!

SillyBeardyDaddyman I really really enjoyed the Genghis Khan series too. What an amazing man! No wonder Western Europe was in fear of 'the Mongol hoardes'. Just as well the whole army turned round and went back east to elect a new Khan

It'll be interesting to see how Genghis is portrayed in the new Andrew marr series...

Norah Lofts. Her royal ones are good but the ones I really love are the Suffolk ones, the House at Old Vine ones in particular. Much under-rated historical novelist IMO. I love the way she creates a world and community around a fictional town (Baildon) and shows how the families are inter-woven, how the economics worked, and how the town changes over the centuries.
She's almost out of print (they reprinted the Old Vine books recently) but that's fine thanks to the magic of Amazon Marketplace.

I really love a book called A Wayside Tavern by Norah Lofts - its about, funnily enough, a wayside tavern, from Roman times through to the 1970's. Love it.

Guernica by Dave Boling about the German air attack was brilliant (soppy ending though) and, continuing the Spanish history theme, I really enjoyed Victoria Hislop's The Return.

Simon Scarrow has a book about the Siege of Malta out soon, which I am looking forward to, having read and enjoyed David Ball's The Sword and the Scimitar.

I'm listening to Alison Weir = A Dangerous Inheritance on Audible at the moment. More Grey sisters (Katherine, mostly) but parallel storyline with the illegitimate daughter of Richard 111. Odd, but enjoying it so far.

Ancient Egypt is my total geek period. Christian Jacq's "Ramses" series is brilliant, as long as you are prepared for it to be implausible in places