Cara Hogarth emigrated from England to Australia as a child, but always wished she hadn’t. So she studied medieval history at university in order to travel back in time and place. Now that she’s bagged a PhD (on Chaucer’s raunchy Wife of Bath), she prefers to write historical fiction in order to truly immerse herself and her readers in the past. She finds academic history a fantastic inspiration for her fiction writing, but is always seeking out historical novels that hit just the right balance between research, humor, and page-turning plot. Warning: her novels can get quite steamy!
Eleanor Janega is that rare beast – an academic who brings history to vivid, irreverent, and hilarious life for the average reader.
I first encountered her waxing lyrical on medieval sex on The Medieval Podcast, and she’s since launched her own podcast: We’re Not So Different. Medieval ideas of gender affected everything about a woman’s life in the Middle Ages, and books like The Once and Future Sex are wonderfully helpful to novelists like me who like to get their historical details right. Besides, Janega is a legend and I’ll read or listen to anything she creates.
What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love and be? In this vibrant, high-spirited history, medievalist Eleanor Janega turns to the Middle Ages, the era that bridged the ancient world and modern society, to unfurl its suppositions about women and reveal what's shifted over time-and what hasn't.
Enshrined medieval thinkers, almost always male, subscribed to a blend of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and Christian theology for their concepts of the sexes. For the height of female attractiveness, they chose the mythical Helen of Troy, whose imagined pear shape, small breasts, and golden hair served as beauty's…
Published by Oxford University Press, Common Women is an academic rather than a popular history of medieval English prostitution, and its author is an expert in medieval sexuality.
I adore the wealth of historical detail founded on original research that Karras presents. It’s a goldmine of inspiration for those of us who write fiction set in medieval England. Where else can you learn about the cross-dressing prostitute John Rykener, the Bishop of Winchester’s brothel empire in Southwark, or discover names like Clarice Clatterballock?
An account of the lives of prostitutes in Medieval England relations, which covers their treatment under the law, and concludes that prostitution was central to the medieval understanding of feminity.
In 2038 a devastating pandemic sweeps across the world. Two decades later, Britain remains the epicenter for the Fornax variant, annexed by a terrified global community.
David Malik is as careful as any man to avoid contact with the virus. But when his sister tests positive as an asymptomatic carrier,…
Wine of Violence is Book One in a medieval mystery series set in an English convent.
No, this is not a salacious romp about monks and nuns getting saucy behind monastery walls. However, sexuality does play a major role in the characters’ thoughts and actions, and in a very believable and relatable way.
The young prioress-sleuth battles against her lust for a handsome priest, who in turn was forced into the priesthood for making love to another man. Oh, and the aged murder victim (also a monk) was found with his severed penis in his hand.
A well-researched mystery, and one of the few medieval-set novels I’ve come across to offer a sympathetic depiction of same-sex love.
It is late summer in the year 1270 and England is as weary as its aging king, Henry III. Although the Simon de Montfort rebellion is over, the smell of death still hangs like smoke over the land. Even in the small priory of Tyndal on the remote East Anglian coast, the monks and nuns of the Order of Fontevraud long for a return to tranquil routine. Their hopes are dashed, however, when the young and inexperienced Eleanor of Wynethorpe is appointed their new prioress over someone of their own choosing. Nor are Eleanor's own prayers for a peaceful transition…
A medieval murder mystery set in a brothel! Prostitution was one of the few ways in which a woman might earn an independent living in the Middle Ages.
Not that I’m recommending it as a career choice, mind you. Roberta Gellis has created quite the unusual whorehouse under her unfortunately beautiful Madam, Magdalene. Her employees include a blind woman, a mute Saracen, a woman of childlike intelligence, and the brothel’s cook too is deaf. Magdalene herself was accused of murder and has to live in disguise.
This is a wonderfully well-researched historical mystery that illuminates the circumstances that might force a medieval woman into prostitution.
Roberta Gellis, acclaimed author of The Roselynde Chronicles, brings medieval London to life--and death--with her latest tale of splendor and squalor. Magdalene la Bâtarde is the madam of the Old Priory Guesthouse in Southwark. She and her women are expected to engage in a number of sinful delights, but bloody murder isn't one of them--until Baldassare, the messenger, dies.
Though Baldassare wasn't a regular client of the Old Priory Guesthouse, Magdalene and her women refuse to allow his death to go unavenged. Of course, their efforts aren't completely altruistic. Chances are if they don't find the killer, they will be…
War is coming to the Pacific. The Japanese will come south within days, seeking to seize the oil- and mineral-rich islands of the Dutch East Indies. Directly astride their path to conquest lie the Philippines, at that time an American protectorate.
Two brothers, Jack and Charlie Davis, are part of…
This history of medieval sex is aimed at a non-academic readership and covers topics from the theology of sex in Eden, medieval definitions of incest (don’t sleep with your god-parents), and the fact that any abnormal sexual activity was considered sodomy (hint: stick to the missionary position).
In short, medieval attitudes to sex were very different from our own. This is a tricky thing to portray in historical fiction, especially historical romance. I’ve covered my copy of this book in pencil scribbles. A readable and entertaining popular history featuring a great cover image straight from a medieval manuscript!
The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much - or too little - sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about whom they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. Other experiences are more familiar. Like us, medieval people faced challenges in finding a suitable partner or trying to…
Be careful when you pick up a whip. Your fingers curl about that seductive handle, your wrist flexes its subtle weight and, yes, you wonder what would happen if you plied those innocent leather strips against another’s flesh.
1348. The Black Death is sweeping medieval London, social order is collapsing, and the virtuous Lady Elizabeth seizes a whip to defend her honor. But, when death seems inevitable, Bess throws caution to the plague-ridden vapors…to save the man she can never have—William de Montfort, the silver-tongued and soon-to-be-married Earl of Sutton. An erotic medieval romance.
1184 BCE. Ramesses III, who will become the last of the great pharaohs, is returning home from battle. He will one day assume the throne of the Egyptian empire, and the plots against him and his children have already started. Even a god can die.
A contemporary romance novel about second chances, love in the workplace, and balancing single parenthood with a career. Bailey Grant and Fox Goodman have given up on love. They’re working hard, they’re raising kids—romance is the last thing on their minds. Until they get seated next to each other on…
