An Handfull of England

by Clive S. Johnson

When hospital doctor Peter Buchanan goes through his case notes for his following morning’s clinic, he doesn’t expect to be transported back four hundred years. There, he becomes caught up in one of Tudor England’s most intriguing mysteries: a Catholic attempt to topple Queen Elizabeth that became known as “The Hesketh Plot”. Nor did he expect that the lives of those so long ago would become as real to him as those of the twenty-first century. So real that, after being returned to his own time, he’s determined to go back to the sixteenth century, to follow the fate brought down on those left in the plot’s wake.

Join Peter and become intimately immersed in the life of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange and fifth Earl of Derby. Follow him into a fascinating, twisting story involving major figures of the time such as: Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex; Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth; Margaret Stanley, Dowager Countess of Derby; Queen Elizabeth herself, and a wealth of characters all the way from Lathom House, the northern seat of power in Lancashire, to the Royal Court at Windsor Castle in the south.

The very last thing Peter suspected was that his slip through time would also bring him love, something he’d long since dismissed as a lost hope. A hope that would then be denied him by time itself. But Peter has always been stubborn, the more so when confronted by the seemingly impossible.

434 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2019

About the author

British author of Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction and Timeslip Historical Fiction, as well as Poetry and Short Stories.

Reviews

[Regina Puckett · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Handful of England is a fascinating read. The plot wove through the past, present and future as if they were brightly hued threads. By the end they had all knitted together to create this wonderful book. I loved the mixture of history, romance and science fiction. Mr. Johnson may have created a new genre with An Handful of England. He has shown just how much of a genius his is with this masterpiece.

[Gillian Acum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having enjoyed Johnson’s previous time-slip novel, The Forebear’s Candle, I was looking forward to this new book, An Handfull of England. I thought I knew more or less what to expect this time round, but was astonished (as well as delighted) to find a novel that was far more ambitious in scope than its predecessor. The historical detail and sense of period come through very strongly – this is a real tour-de-force of immersion in the era.

Don’t take this to mean, however, that plot and character have taken a back seat to historical research. Nothing could be further from the truth. The characters are fascinating and engaging, and the intertwining of political intrigue in the sixteenth century with present day unravelling of the mystery of how Peter is managing to time travel, makes for a thoroughly riveting read.