A New Series of Events in West London
We’ve been working on something rather special for lovers of history and literature in London. William Ryan, one of the talents behind the highly successful First Monday Crime Series, along with Antonia Senior, Imogen Robertson and Anna Mazzola have been carefully researching venues and badgering best-selling authors to bring you History by the River, a monthly panel discussion with a social buzz. It’s a chance to get together with fellow readers and writers to hear about the best new historical writing, then discuss it all over a drink afterwards – it’s like an evening with Historia in real life. After much deliberation, we’ve chosen The Blue Anchor for our first events, a beautiful historic pub with great food and drink which overlooks the Thames, and is only five minutes walk from Hammersmith Underground.
Be there at the beginning of something great.
NB: you can’t actually see Tower Bridge from the pub, but Hammersmith Bridge is pretty too!
History by the River
Tuesday 16 May 2017
7.30pm
13 Lower Mall,
Hammersmith, W6 9DJ
Featuring Conn Iggulden, Antonia Senior and Sarah Day
Chaired by William Ryan.
Book your tickets on eventbrite: £5
Conn Iggulden
Born in London, Conn Iggulden read English at London University and worked as a teacher for seven years before becoming a full-time writer. Married with three children, he lives in Hertfordshire. Since publication of The Gates of Rome, Conn has written a further thirteen books including the wildly successful The Dangerous Book for Boys and his epic War of the Roses series.
With his new book, Dunstan, Conn takes us back to the year 937 and the court of King Æthelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, as he readies himself to throw a great spear into the north. His dream of a kingdom of all England will stand or fall on one field and the passage of a single day.
At his side is Dunstan of Glastonbury, full of ambition and wit, perhaps enough to damn his soul. His talents will take him from the villages of Wessex to the royal court, to the hills of Rome – from exile to exaltation.
Through Dunstan’s vision, by his guiding hand, England may come together as one great country – or fall back into anarchy and misrule . . .
From Conn Iggulden, one of our finest historical writers, Dunstan is an intimate portrait of a priest and performer, a visionary, a traitor and confessor to kings – the man who changed the fate of England.
Antonia Senior
Antonia’s first career was as a journalist. She spent thirteen years on staff at The Times, writing about everything from pensions to particle physics. She left after her second child to try to fulfil a long held ambition: to write historical novels. Her third book, The Tyrant’s Shadow, is hot of the presses.
A court without a kingdom, a kingdom without a king…England, 1652: since Charles I’s execution the land has remained untethered, the people longing for change. When Patience Johnson meets preacher Sidrach Simmonds, she believes her destiny is to become his wife and help him spread the Lord’s word. Simmonds sees things quite differently. Patience’s brother Will has been bestowed the job of lawyer to Oliver Cromwell. Tasked with aiding England’s most powerful man, he must try to overcome his grief after the loss of his wife. Then Sam Challoner, Will’s brother-in-law, returns unannounced after years in exile, forcing Will and Patience to question their loyalties: one to a ruler, the other, a spouse. Who do they choose to save? Themselves, their loved ones or their country…
Sarah Day
Sarah Day is a London based writer and science communicator.
With a background in the history and philosophy of science, she has also written non fiction for publications including The Guardian, The Vagenda and the British Society for Literature and Science. She works as an Earth Science Communicator at the Geological Society of London. Her first novel, Mussolini’s Island, was published in February 2017 by Tinder Press.
When Francesco is rounded up with a group of young men and herded into a camp on the island of San Domino, he realises that someone has handed a list of names to the fascist police; everyone is suspicious of one another. His former lover Emilio is constantly agitating for revolution. His old friend Gio jealously watches their relationship rekindle. Locked in spartan dormitories, resentment and bitterness between the men grows each day.
When Elena, a young and illiterate island girl on the cusp of womanhood, discovers the truth about the group of prisoners, the fine line between love and hate pulls her towards an act that can only have terrible consequences for all.
William Ryan – Chair and your host for the evening
William Ryan’s Captain Korolev novels have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year, The Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, the Ellis Peters and John Creasey Daggers and the Irish Crime Novel of the Year (twice). William teaches on the Crime Writing Masters at City University in London. His latest novel The Constant Soldier has been described by AL Kennedy as “a nuanced, complex and gripping tale of guilt and love that captures the chaos at the end of World War Two”.
