readers advisory for all discussion

Hello!

As the historical fiction junkie I am, I'd love to ask for a book / books about:
Setting:
* Medieval , pre- Renaissance
* Renaissance
Somewhere around the era of the Medici Family...

If you can, female main character.

I know there are many erotica books about it, so please do not recommend them, it's not for me.

Erm, maybe some books by Julie Hearn? To be honest, I'm really not too sure what to recommend, there are small references in her books, but overall not bad. I really hope this is helpful.

Both Jeanne Kalogridis and C.W. Gortner have books out about the Medici.

I should note that I haven't read them except for I, Mona Lisa, which I thought was okay. But many people I know like or love both authors.

If you don't mind vampires in your historical fiction, you might check out

The Palace

I'd recommend anything by Karen Maitland. All her books so far are set in Medieval times, and they're all a lot of fun to read but also very well-researched and historically detailed. They all have multiple narrators and more than one main character, but I'd say her strongest and most fully realised characters are female. My favourite of her books is The Gallows Curse.

If you can read German, you could try Die Medici Chroniken - Hüter der Macht ;-). Other than that, I'm afraid that I don't know any other books that match your wish ;-).

Steffi wrote: "If you can read German, you could try Die Medici Chroniken - Hüter der Macht ;-). Other than that, I'm afraid that I don't know any other books that match your wish ;-)."

Thanks. I can't read German... oh, well! Thanks!

I loved Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles: A Novel. During her time in France Mary has some contact with the Medici family.

Nadine wrote: "I loved Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles: A Novel. During her time in France Mary has some contact with the Medici family."

Thank you! I also adore british history

She (Margaret George) also wrote a great biography about Henry VIII. and more recently one about Elizabeth I. (which seems a bit like treachery to me after she wrote about Mary Stuart ;-), but I might be biased ). I didn't read the one about Elizabeth, I had read one about her by a german author (Cornelia Wusowski), which I also enjoyed a lot. It was particularly great to read about the same time and partly the same events from different points of view.

Great thread, thanks for posting. perfectly my neck of the woods.

Now i'll check out Karen Maitland books.

Two series by Dorothy Dunnett:

"The Lymond Chronicles" is a 6 part series about the youngest son of a noble Scottish family around the time of Bloody Mary (mid 1500s?). He travels all around the world and gets involved in all kinds of politics. It's very detailed and well-written historical adventure.

"The House of Niccolo" is a prequel series set in Renaissance Italy. I haven't read these, but I want to.

The Pillars of the Earth has a number of strong female characters strewn amongst it's thousand or so pages, and it's written in English.

But you've probably already read it :-)

I'll second the second Dorothy Dunnett series, it's massive but well worth the effort, and has a female protagonist - the Flemish wife and partner of Niccolo, founder of a merchant dynasty starting in Bruges and covering most of Europe, with side quests in Turkey, Iceland, Africa, the Middle East, Cyprus, Russia. Florence and Venice feature prominently in the books.

If you are not turned off by extreme violence, bad language and dome supernatural elements, I would add Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle. It is set during the Burgundy Wars with France, Switzerland and the Germanic states, and the main character is the leader of a mercenary band.