All Things Medieval discussion

Author of fiction and non fiction Alison Weir is a favorite author of many people. Her books include Queen Isabella of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Misstress of the Monarchy as well as a few Tudor era books.

I have several Weir novels also, but mine are from the Tudor era. I'll have to check out her books on Queen Isabella and Eleanor.

A very good medieval novel is Pone Joan. A really great read!

It's going to be interesting to read her take on Eleanor of Aquitaine as a novel....

I think it is non fiction if I remember correctly but I could be wrong. I ordered it six months ago and still have not got to read it yet, too many book reading groups I think.

She wrote a non fiction book (not always historically sound) on Eleanor of Aquitaine and she now has a fiction version coming out - The Eagle and the Lion I think the title is or vice versa with the birdy and the cat.

I ordered her nonfiction book on Queen Isabella last night and her Eleanor book last week, both nonfiction. Hope their good!

I just bought 10-15 Eropean Royalty books from medieval through Tudors maybe Stuarts, the hardest part is going to get them in chronological order to read, along with the others I already own.

But I went to some sites suggested on the meieval thread and found some really good chronological lists of the kings and queens.

Is Weir's Britain's Royal Families: the Complete Genealogy worth buying as a reference. I already have Fraser's The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England.

As you can read, I need a little help!

I read her books on Henry VIII and the Princes in the Tower several years ago and enjoyed them, but then I've heard interesting opinions on her *research* and may not read any further.

I did get her book on Katherine Swynford out from the library earlier this year and only made it to about page #20. There really isn't enough known about her to fill a book and all Weir had was stuff like "Katherine might have worn this", "might have done this", "could have eaten this". I got bored pretty quickly. The pictures were pretty though.

This is how bad I'm hooked on ER and trying to get a good collection through the ages, I bought these in the last week and a half. Plus I already own a decent collection. It really is going to take time for me to decide in what order to read them.

1.Behind the Mask - Jane Resh Thomas
2.Daughter of York - Anne Easter Smith
3.The Secret Bride - Diane Haeger
4.A Rose for the Crown - Easter Smith
5.The Flight of the Romanovs - John Curtis Perry
6.To Hold The Crown -Plaidy
7.The King's Daughter - Sandra Worth
8.My Lady of Cleaves - Plaidy
9.King's Fool - Margaret Campbell Barnes
10.The Sixth Wife - Plaidy
11.Eleanor of Aquitaine - Weir
12.The Life of Elzabeth I - Weir
13.The Last Great Dance on Earth - Sandra Gulland
14.Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe - Gulland
15.The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B - Gulland
16.Eleanor the Queen - Norah Lofts
17.Here Be Dragons - Penman
18.The Reluctant King - Sarah Bradford
19.Falls the Shadow - Penman
20.An Army of Angels - Pamela Marcantel
21.When Christ and His Saints Slept - Penman
22.Devil's Blood - Penman
23.Reckoning - Penman
24.The King's Grace - Easter Smith
25.Joan of Arc:Her Story - Pernoud
26.Joan of Arc: by Herself and Her Witnesses - Pernoud
27.The Greatest Traitor - Ian Mortimer
28.Queen Isabella - Weir

wow, you got alot of really good books, I just read My Lady of Cleves though not medieval it was refreshing pov on the whole situation with Henry VIII.

Susan I am new to the genre. Did Alison Weir write all of the 28 books you just listed?

No, there all suggestions I picked up either here or on other european royalty threads. That are from a relativily large variety of authors.

I just really need help getting them all organized chronologically. SO I might be asking some of you ladies out there for help.

Susan in fact I see that now since When Christ and His Saints Slept is by Penman - I just read it! Silly me!

Do most of agree that I should read them chronologically?

Chrissie wrote: "Susan in fact I see that now since When Christ and His Saints Slept is by Penman - I just read it! Silly me!"

If it will be helpful to you, as a fellow newbee, I will add the authors to the list.I spent time going through old thread under ER i.e The Tudors and What Have You Read Lately to find what books were worth buying.
I bought them at alibris.com (coupon of the month is art), amazon.com, and abebooks.com. used, but in either very good or like new condition. I never pay full price for a book anymore. Just let me know, it wouldn't be a big deal for me to add the authors.

Yes Susan, I would appreciate that! Thank you.

fantasticfiction.com is a great site to find an author's books by chronology and series.

I'll have the authors listed shortly!

Susan thanks - I bookmarked the site!

Your welcome, I'm just glad I've been able to help you!

The authors are all there now.

I don't read chronologically only because sometimes I get bored I like to change it up, plus I can ony read so many close together about the same subject for ex. I read the welsh triology then a few Tudors/
Regency though not about the same person then jumped back into middle age set books, it is like you step away and come back refreshed and ready to devour the next book.

That interesting. I was wondering if you read for ex. 3 books on Anne Bolyen would you get sick of the Tudor period and want to move either forward or backward in time.

I think my plan is to read one from each period I have, so I have a good foundation of the chronology and then read as I wish. Like you said " step away and come back refreshed",

I do, specially with Tudors, I only read a few a year but everything else is fair game.

Thanks Nona, you have really been a big help to me in getting started in this genre and helping me weed through authors and books.
If I had to place a bet, I'd wager that your as big of a book lover as I am.

Thanks again for the help!
Susan

I have to mix things up as well. Every once in a while I get hooked on an author and have to read them all at once (i.e. Gabaldon), but for the most part it's best not to. It helps avoid reader burn-out, especially Tudor burn-out.

Yep, Nona's quite a book lover and a book buyer as well :)

Thanks for the chuckle!

lol yep I have a bit of an impulsive buying prblem when it comes to books, as Misfit can tell you.

Susan C, I started looking at each of the books in your long list above. My question is - how did you decide on just these particular books? Were they just ones that caught your attention, or on other's recommendations, or did you try to get a complet time span? Just curious. I agree it is hard to know how to tackle this large genre. I am quite careful before purchases. I even try to find a bit of the novel to read to see if I like the way the author writes. Don't you find that it gets expensive if you order books from several places due to postage costs. To know the true cost you must include the postage and often you do not know that until the end. I was intriqued by Book Depository b/c therre you see a comparison with Amazon UK including postage.

Well I decided to bite the bullet and get a good colection and probably won't be buying more anytime soon. I took recommendations about authors from these threads and picked one's that interested me.

For example, everyone loves Penman so that was easy, Plaidy I know can be dry at times but most people think she really sticks to history. I loved the covers of Anne Easter Smith plus she was well recommended. I was interested in Joan of Arc and asked for suggestions,I chose the ones that sounded interesting.

I spent about $250 dollars, including shipping between amazon US,abebooks(have to watch UK shipping to US), and alibris.com.(where I used the same coupon repeatedly). It comes out to about $9 a book but you have to remember, several are hardbacks that I paid a few dollars for. To me it was a good deal, if I had bought new books from BN or Amazon, it would have been at least twice the price.

I chose books that were USED but "like new/new". Alibris is usually better for finding books in great condition at a low cost(1.99-2.99) and they will refund you completely if they are not as described.
The postage is the same at amazon and alibris regardless the book. Abebooks depends where it's coming from.

I just figured out that if I bought the Penman books and Anne Easter Smith's new at Amazon, it would have cost me $116 with shipping. I think I got a good deal my way.

Hope this helps. If you want help with alibris just ask me?

Nona wrote: "lol yep I have a bit of an impulsive buying prblem when it comes to books, as Misfit can tell you."

I had the same problem until I discovered my wonderful county library system. I just get impulsive with book holds instead of buys.

Thank you Susan C, So alibris is American. It gets so complicated and more expensive when you have to add on taxes. I have done Abe books, but there the problem is that the postage changes depending on the sender. To avoid the taxes and to cheapen/simplify postage I usually order from England's Amazon. If I order a second hand book from Amazon wont the postage vary depending on who is supplying it, as with Abe? Misfit, it is iùmpossible to get English books at libraries in Belgium. French or Dutch - that is what you should read! Bou do I appreciate Swedish libraries now - there, there are tons of English books available to lend.

Chrissie wrote: "Thank you Susan C, So alibris is American. It gets so complicated and more expensive when you have to add on taxes. I have done Abe books, but there the problem is that the postage changes dependin..."

Amazon and Alibris I think always have the same postage but I don't know about outside the US. Sorry!

Chrissie,

Around 10 of my books arrived today (99% from alibris) and they were exactly as described i.e. like new/new. So of course I was very happy about my purchases and they look so nice on my shelves!

Hi Susan C, Well I spent quite a long time today checking out prices and how things work at Alibris and BoodDepository, both having UK sites. This will make it possible to aboid extra tax costs. Comparing total costs and taking into consideration the coupons you spoke of, it was in fact cheaper at BookDepository! Actually 70% cheaper! Alibris only offers 3£ off a 30£ offer or 5£ off a 50£ offer at the UK site! Well I did a thorough analysis, so I feel quite good about the whole thing. If you had not prompted me, I wouldn't have done it. Now I am going to go back to your list and continue checking out what you found so interesting! Thank you for helping me, even though it ended up cheaper at the Book Depository!

Nona and Misfit, I finally figured out how to read my evergrowing collection. I'm taking your advise mixing it up so I don't get bored. I just spent around 5 hours getting my books written in chronological plus geographic order. So I still plan on starting at the earliest time period but then I'll move on to the next person, instead of reading 3 Joan of Arc books in a row.

Thanks to both of you for all your recommendations and suggestions. They really helped me put my collection together.

I hope you enjoy reading them all let us know what you think of them, I have a few on my shelf to read later on.

I will!

Nona & Misfit, what book/book would you recommend on The War of the Roses?

Thanks!
Susan

I've only read Rosemary Hawley Jarman and Sandra Wroth and they were alright but the ready gets drawn out inplaces Misfit would know a better selection then me since I've only read two or three books on WotR.

Thanks Nona!

I recommend Penman's Sunne in Splendour, but it is huge, although it covers the period quite well. Jarman was a bit too flowery for me and the way We Speak no Treason is written you really won't get much insight into the period and it's politics. Treason by Meredith Whitford was good but very pro Richard.

I've only read one book by Worth and it was dreadful. The Woodvilles are really really bad and Richard and Anne are saintly in their perfect goodness. I understand Richard's like that in all her books.

Still waiting for our own Susan H's book on the period as well as Brian Wainwright's.

yeah I'm waiting on her book too, can't wait!

Misfit wrote: "I recommend Penman's Sunne in Splendour, but it is huge, although it covers the period quite well. Jarman was a bit too flowery for me and the way We Speak no Treason is written you really won't ge..."

Thanks for the recommendations, I already have Sunne in Splendour so I'm in good shape.

Please keep me posted on the new books i.e. Susan H and Wainwright.

Thanks!

Please keep me posted on the new books i.e. Susan H and Wainwright.

Spring 2010 for The Stolen Crown! Finishing up revisions this week.

Brenda Honeyman/Clarke (her novels are published under both names) has written a number of novels dealing with the earlier years of the Wars of the Roses. There's also David Falconieri's The Beggar's Throne, which deals with the period up to 1471. I also enjoyed Reay Tannahill's The Seventh Son, another novel about Richard III. It's sympathetic toward Richard, but he's not the saint he is in novels like Worth's.

Susan H.

Thanks Susan, I'll be looking for your's in the spring!

P.S. - please give me a synopsis of your book.

Susan C wrote: "Thanks Susan, I'll be looking for your's in the spring!

P.S. - please give me a synopsis of your book."

Well, since you asked . . . :)

It's narrated by Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who helped Richard III to the throne in 1483, and Henry's wife, Katherine Woodville, the youngest sister of Elizabeth Woodville. There's an excerpt here:

http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/thes...

Susan wrote: "Susan C wrote: "Thanks Susan, I'll be looking for your's in the spring!

P.S. - please give me a synopsis of your book."

Well, since you asked . . . :)

It's narrated by Henry Stafford, Duke of Bu..."

I just bought The Traitor's Wife from Amazon and am looking forward to it's arrival.

Thanks! It'll be interesting to hear what you think of it and Weir's bio of Isabella.

I'm reading Weir's Queen Isabella now and I have a feeling I'd be totally lost if I hadn't read Susan's The Traitors Wife previously.
Hugh and Bess just arrived from Amazon, but I'll be a good girl and finish Queen Isabella first!

Is Weir's book on Mary Queen of Scots worth buying?

Stephanie wrote: "I'm reading Weir's Queen Isabella now and I have a feeling I'd be totally lost if I hadn't read Susan's The Traitors Wife previously.
Hugh and Bess just arrived from Amazon, but I'll be a good gir..."

Thanks for the heads up. I have both books and will now be sure to read Susan's first.

isn't Isabella and Eleanor by weir non fiction?