A Column of Fire by Ken Follett A Review 'The fire continued to burn, and the dead body of Philibert turned into a blackened ruin ...... I did not know how men could do such things, and I did not understand why God would let them.' It's nearly twenty years since Ken Follett surprised many …
Category: British History
The Last Tudor
by Philippa Gregory A Review '[Katherine] turns to me and her blue eyes blaze with the Tudor temper. She has pride, just like me. "You don't deserve my love for you," she says, with her own silly logic. "But you have it anyway, when you least deserve it. Because I see the trouble you are …
Not 'arf cut ……
Interview with local writer Rupert Ashby Rupert Ashby is the author of Izzie, the novel about a young girl growing up on the waterways of southern England. About the story: In the years before World War II, Isobel Horne is a boat girl with a burning ambition to learn how to read. Encouraged by her …
Who Do You Think You Are?
Blood of the Isles by Bryan Sykes A Bookheathen Review I became fascinated by genetics back in my student days. The science was still at an early stage then. We knew about DNA but were still a long way from using it to solve crimes, and an even longer way from sequencing the human genome. …
The Other Queen
by Philippa Gregory (A novel of the captivity of Mary, Queen of Scots) Mary Stuart must be the most written about person in the whole of history, and with good reason. Pick your side: she was either a hopeless (and foolish) romantic, a woman too trusting for her own good, a victim of one conspiracy …
The Taming of the Queen
by Philippa Gregory ' "....He is a madman, Kateryn, he has been mad for years. ....And you will be his next victim.' " This is the stark warning delivered to Kateryn Parr by Thomas Seymour in Philippa Gregory's brilliant novel reconstruction of the marriage of Henry VIII and his sixth wife. Set in the 1540s, …
Jane's History
The History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st by Jane Austen [Henry the 8th] ' . . . [his] last wife contrived to survive him, but with difficulty effected it.' [James the 1st] '. . . had some faults, among which & as the most …
Gone to London to see the Queen!
The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott 'On the day when the unhappy Porteous was expected to suffer the sentence of the law, the place of execution, extensive as it is, was crowded almost to suffocation.' Edinburgh 1737: Captain John Porteous, King's officer, is confined in the Tolbooth prison for firing on a crowd …
Witches and Castles
"There shall not be found among you anyone who practises divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or necromancer.' The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham by Tony Riches History and historians have been unkind to women, giving them at best a minor role, at worst demonising them and even, …
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett A Review My choice of title has nothing to do with the Robert Wise classic sci-fi film of 1951, or indeed the inferior remake of 2008. Instead, it refers to the day - 22nd November 1963 - when the world was rocked with the news that US President John …
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