To celebrate the publication (on 20 January) of The Queen’s Lady by Joanna Hickson, Historia is giving five winners copies of both novels in her Queens of the Tower series to five winners. The first, Lady of the Ravens, came out a year ago. The giveaway is open until 11.59pm on 1 February, 2022. Each of […]
The Good Death by SD Sykes
1370. Oswald de Lacy was not always Lord of the Manor, or even meant to be. The third son, he was sent off to become a novice monk. Now, with winter closing in on Somershill, his wife flirting with their houseguest, his sister sniping from the sidelines and his mother still ruling his life even […]
The Queen’s Lady by Joanna Hickson
Raven-haired and fiercely independent, Joan Guildford has always remained true to herself. As lady-in-waiting and confidante to Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, Joan understands royal patronage is vital if she and her husband, Sir Richard, are to thrive in the volatile atmosphere of court life. But Tudor England is in mourning following the death […]
Joan Vaux – child prodigy and lady-in-waiting to four queens
Joanna Hickson writes about the unusual life of Joan Vaux, child prodigy, second-generation immigrant, champion of the Tower ravens and lady-in-waiting to four queens, who is the subject of her latest novel, The Queen’s Lady. When I was researching the history of Joan Vaux I very quickly realised that her character and life were too […]
The Widow’s Last Secret by Lora Davies
Six years ago, in 1840, Bella Farrow lost everything. Desperate and starving, she made a terrible mistake that forced her to abandon her home, her livelihood and her family. And when the only person she trusted – her beloved, steadfast husband – was killed in a tragic accident, Bella was left alone. She had to […]
Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Rosetta Stone Mystery by Linda Stratmann
Sherlock Holmes and the Rosetta Stone Mystery is the first of Linda Stratmann‘s novels following the consulting detective in the making. Tom Williams, author of the Napoleonic era-set James Burke adventures and the darker John Williamson books, finds it “rather wonderful”. The world is full of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Most of them, to be honest, […]
Burke and the Pimpernel Affair by Tom Williams
It’s 1809, and when a mission running agents into Napoleon’s France goes horribly wrong, it’s up to Burke to save the day. With the French secret police on his trail, can he stay alive long enough to free British spies from imprisonment in the centre of Paris? And how does the Empress Josephine fit into […]
Asylums and prisons: locking women away in madhouses
Nicola Pryce tells Historia about the historical background to her latest novel, which touches on various kinds of imprisonment; the most shocking is the 18th-century practice of locking inconvenient women away in madhouses, as she explains. The Cornish Captive is the sixth novel in my Cornish series. My heroine is mentioned before in passing but […]