Who were the Warenne Earls of Surrey? As good as forgotten now, for 300 years they were at the heart of English history, as medieval historian and novelist John Paul Davis learned when reading Defenders of the Norman Crown, Sharon Bennett Connolly’s history of the once-prominent family. He reviews it for Historia. Defenders of the […]
The link between Scotland and the Inuit
Elisabeth Gifford writes about the link between Scottish whalers and the Inuit people living on the Arctic Atlantic coasts, which is a major theme in her latest book, A Woman Made of Snow. The Arctic Bar in Dundee is an unprepossessing pub with a modern frontage, but inside the dusty harpoon guns and photographs of […]
Should historical authors feel guilt when they write real people as antiheroes?
What responsibility has an author of historical fiction towards real people who they write as antiheroes in a novel? Should authors feel guilty about how they portray them? AJ West, whose debut novel, The Spirit Engineer, takes people who have living descendants as its close inspiration, considers this dilemma. I don’t believe in ghosts, though […]
The HWA Crown Awards shortlists 2021
The 2021 HWA Crown Awards shortlists are out! We’re delighted to announce the 18 outstanding books which have gone forward for consideration for this year’s Crown Awards, with six books in each of the three categories: HWA Gold Crown, HWA Non-fiction Crown and HWA Debut Crown. HWA Gold Crown shortlist 2021 V For Victory by […]
Sex in Ancient Rome
Sexual activity in Ancient Rome wasn’t the licentious free-for-all we may imagine (especially for women); in fact it was strictly regulated. But author and historian LJ Trafford has unearthed plenty of weird and lurid facts about Ancient Roman sex for her new book, as she tells Historia. When my publisher suggested to me that I […]
Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome by LJ Trafford
From emperors and empresses, poets and prostitutes, slaves and plebs, Ancient Rome was a wealth of different experiences and expectations. None more so than around the subject of sex and sexuality. The image of Ancient Rome that has come down to us is one of sexual excess: emperors gripped by perversion partaking in pleasure with […]
The wizards of west Wales
In 19th-century Wales, when medical cures were hit-or-miss, people were just as likely to go to one of the cunning folk as to a qualified doctor. Alis Hawkins, whose new book, Not One Of Us, features one such astrologer and healer, writes about the real wizards of west Wales. One of the reasons I love […]
The Partisan, socialist cafe and creative centre
Mary Chamberlain writes about the Partisan Coffee House, the socialist cafe which, in its four-year existence, became a creative centre which transformed the political, intellectual and cultural scene in the 1960s. At a time when espresso bars were the rage, and a new, young clientele had cash to spare, the Partisan Coffee House opened its […]