Here are 100 books that Shadow on the Crown fans have personally recommended if you like
Shadow on the Crown.
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I have been writing for years and reading forever. Fantasy books have always been my number one go-to as far as genres. I loved how they would teleport me to a new world, allowing me to leave behind reality. The characters became my friends. The worlds became my home. I couldn’t get enough and still can’t. As I got older, my imagination never stopped. I was constantly creating dreamworld and character plots in my head. Eventually, I started writing, needing the characters to stop talking. The only way to do that was to get them on paper. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop.
This story made me fall in love and then hate my lover all in the same breath. The mixture of history and fiction led me on a roller coaster of emotions.
I loved how Anne was so strong and knew how to get what she wanted and work her way through a world built by men for men, yet, in the end, her inability to birth a male heir was her downfall. The king framed her in order to remove her from the throne and move on to the next youngest thing. I was enraged!
This book makes me so angry, but I couldn’t stop reading Gregory’s work after this one. It totally hooked me and forced me to buy all her books written about this specific timeframe.
The acclaimed international bestseller of the Tudor court, during the years of Henry VIII's pursuit of Anne Boleyn - and the revolutionary sequence of events that followed.
1521. Young Mary Boleyn arrives at court, maid in waiting and favourite to Queen Katherine of Aragon.
Yet Mary catches the eye of the capricious king and - propelled by the ambitions of the powerful Boleyn family - she betrays her queen, and takes her place as Henry VIII's new mistress.
But while Mary is in childbed, a rival comes to court - her sister Anne, a…
I am a historical fiction writer, specializing in ancient history through a female perspective. My first series, The Queens of the Conquest, follows the wives of the men fighting to be King of England in 1066 for a vitally neglected take on a key year. My second, Shakespeare’s Queens, revisits three of the bard’s greatest female characters via the real historical figures who inspired them. I love the way fiction can lift facts, settings, and cultures into something hopefully more vibrant than a straightforward history lesson and aim to offer the best possible time travel for readers. I believe the books on this list do that beautifully.
If any woman goes down in British history as ‘kick-ass’ it has to be Boudica and Manda Scott’s lyrical, elegant, exciting novel about her astonishing rebellion against the Romans really captures this real-life rebel in vivid and involving detail. This novel didn’t just show me the period in which it is set, but totally dropped me into it. Scott captures the mysticism of those times in an assertive, utterly convincing way to take you on the journey through the mud and blood of this astonishing woman’s fight for all that is right. Best of all – it’s the start of a series…
In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly twenty years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilization and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire. Gloriously imagined, Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle recreates the beginnings of a story so powerful its impact has survived through the ages, recounting the journey to adulthood of Breaca, who at twelve kills her first warrior, and her sensitive, skilful half-brother Ban, who…
I am a historical fiction writer, specializing in ancient history through a female perspective. My first series, The Queens of the Conquest, follows the wives of the men fighting to be King of England in 1066 for a vitally neglected take on a key year. My second, Shakespeare’s Queens, revisits three of the bard’s greatest female characters via the real historical figures who inspired them. I love the way fiction can lift facts, settings, and cultures into something hopefully more vibrant than a straightforward history lesson and aim to offer the best possible time travel for readers. I believe the books on this list do that beautifully.
Lady Jane Grey is an enticing character. Famous as a nine-day-queen, her story is a poignant segment of the brutal succession battle that tore the English crown apart for too many years. I’ve tended to see her as a tiny, tragic protestant foreshadowing of the far more ruthless Elizabeth to come and not thought much more about her, but this novel really brought her awful story to life. Told from the perspective of a fictional girl employed as Jane’s companion in her days in the Tower of London, it gives us a fresh and very real insight into her fate. A light but poignant read, this will draw you into another world and carry you through to the inevitably sad sending.
Escorting the nine-day queen Lady Jane Grey across the Tower of London from throne room into imprisonment is Elizabeth Tilney, who surprised even herself by volunteering for the job. All Elizabeth knows is she's keen to be away from home; she could do with some breathing space. And anyway, it won't be for long: everyone knows Jane will go free as soon as the victorious new queen is crowned. Which is a good thing because the two sixteen-year-olds, cooped up together in a room in the Gentleman Gaoler's house, couldn't be less compatible. Protestant Jane is an icily self-composed idealist,…
I am a historical fiction writer, specializing in ancient history through a female perspective. My first series, The Queens of the Conquest, follows the wives of the men fighting to be King of England in 1066 for a vitally neglected take on a key year. My second, Shakespeare’s Queens, revisits three of the bard’s greatest female characters via the real historical figures who inspired them. I love the way fiction can lift facts, settings, and cultures into something hopefully more vibrant than a straightforward history lesson and aim to offer the best possible time travel for readers. I believe the books on this list do that beautifully.
The most up-to-date of my choices, this fabulous book is about Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas, who both had relationships with Ari Onassis. I had obviously heard of both women in their very different contexts as wife of the president and famous opera singer but didn’t know how intimately they were connected. I love the way Gill Paul’s sparky, pacey novel brings both women to life in all their flawed, fascinating glory.
From the #1 bestselling author of The Secret Wife comes a story of love, passion, and tragedy as the lives of Jackie Kennedy and Maria Callas are intertwined―and they become the ultimate rivals, in love with the same man.
The President's Wife; a Glamorous Superstar; the rivalry that shook the world...
Jackie Kennedy was beautiful, sophisticated, and contemplating leaving her ambitious young senator husband. Life in the public eye with an overly ambitious--and unfaithful―man who could hardly be coaxed to return from a vacation after the birth of a stillborn child was breaking her spirit. So when she's offered a…
I’m a storyteller. I studied graphic design, animation, and film and became the title designer of Yorkshire Television’s game show 3*2*1 and directed an art-directed film and animation for British television and cinema. I was the Project Designer of the original Jorvik Viking Centre (1984). By 2008 I designed and built 25 award-winning cultural heritage centres and completed 150 international consultancies, producing and directing my exhibition documentaries. I learned how important writingwas to my work. When it came down to it, whatever technique I used in the telling, there was always the storybehind it as the way to transport the audience into a mentally immersive experience.
Having made my creative name as project designer responsible for the original Jorvik Viking Centre in York, UK, this book uses words and historical illustrations to do what we attempted to do. It was to place the observer into an experience from the past, which would be in such detail and authenticity that it’s as close, I believe, to time travel as our generation will achieve. Truth, fascination, and amazement. Why I like this book is it achieved what archaeologists, scientists, and interpretive designers strove to achieve.
What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium
The Year 1000 is a vivid and surprising portrait of life in England a thousand years ago - no spinach, no sugar, but a world which already knew brain surgeons and property developers, and yes, even the occasional gossip columnist.
Uncovering such wonderfully unexpected details, authors Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger bring this distant world closer than it has ever been before. How did monks communicate if they were not allowed to speak? What punishments could the law impose without stone and iron prisons in which to lock up…
I’m a writer of novels set in Saxon England. I studied the era at both undergraduate and graduate levels and never meant to become a historical fiction writer. But I developed a passion to tell the story of the last century of Early England through the eyes of the earls of Mercia, as opposed to the more well-known, Earl Godwin. I’m still writing that series but venture further back in time as well. I might have a bit of an obsession with the Saxon kingdom of Mercia. I’m fascinated by the whole near-enough six hundred years of Saxon England before the watershed moment of 1066, after which, quite frankly, everything went a bit downhill.
Aethelstan is an engrossing account of king Aethelstan, lauded as the first crowned king of ‘England,’ something his father, and more importantly, his grandfather, King Alfred, was unable to lay claim to. It’s a thorough examination of all that’s known about Aethelstan during his reign. It’s rare to get a book dedicated to any one single king before the reign of Æthelred II, who was Aethelstan’s great, great-nephew, and reigned thirty years later. The work shows just how much can be gleaned about historical figures during this period by experts in the field, who know how to unpick all the complicated details and present them to readers in an engaging format.
"AEthelstan was perhaps the most important king of tenth-century England, but we know very little about him, and he has no modern biography. Sarah Foot triumphantly fills this gap, and adds to the richness of our understanding of the period in a way that few others have managed."-Chris Wickham, author of The Inheritance Of Rome
The powerful and innovative King AEthelstan reigned only briefly (924-939), yet his achievements during those eventful fifteen years changed the course of English history. He won spectacular military victories (most notably at Brunanburh), forged unprecedented political connections across Europe, and succeeded in creating the first…
I am an Associate Professor of medieval history at Robinson College in the University of Cambridge. One exciting aspect of research about early medieval Britain is that there is always more to discover and understand, whether from artefacts being uncovered in archaeological excavations (like the Staffordshire Hoard), or from manuscripts that languish in archives and libraries across Britain without a modern translation and commentary. The books on this list—which offer insights into different aspects of early British life—are some of those that have captivated me most over my years of reading.
I first read this book as a student and found it utterly enthralling.
Having grown up in Durham myself, I’ve long been interested in the history of the north of England. Bloodfeud vividly portrays early eleventh-century Northumbria, at a time when King Cnut had just taken control and was trying to impose his authority.
The book plunges you into the politics of the Northumbrian aristocracy and some of the ways in which Cnut approached the governance of this part of the English kingdom. The sources on which Fletcher relies are scanty and complex, but he masterfully brings them to life.
On a gusty March day in 1016, as King Canute was completing his subjugation of the north of England, he commanded the appearance of teh greatest of his northern subjects, Earl Uhtred of Northumbria, at a place called Wiheal, probably near Tadcaster in Yorkshire. Uhtred had been loyal to Canute's predecessor, Ethelred the Unready, but realized that Canute had an overwhelming upper hand, and came with forty retainers to Wiheal to make his submission. However, as Richard Fletcher recounts in his opening to this book, "Treachery was afoot". Uhtred and his men were ambushed and slaughtered by an old enemy…
Dan Fesperman has made a living by writing about dangerous and unseemly people and places since his days as a journalist, when he was a foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun. Now traveling on his own dime, his books draw upon his experiences in dozens of countries and three war zones. His novels have won two Dagger awards in the UK and the Dashiell Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers. His thirteenth novel, Winter Work, will be published in July by Knopf. He lives in Baltimore.
Bennett offers a cheeky take on the power of reading with this whimsical but keenly observed novel in which Queen Elizabeth, while searching for a wayward corgi, stumbles upon a bookmobile parked outside Buckingham Palace. To be royally polite she checks out a novel, begins reading it later, and soon finds herself craving another. This quickly leads to a reading habit bordering on obsession, as the world inside her mind begins to broaden more than she could have imagined.
It was the corgis' fault. When they strayed through the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the Queen discovered the City of Westminster travelling library. The Queen has never had much time for reading - pleasure has always come second place to duty - though now that one is here I suppose one ought to borrow a book. She is about to discover the joys of literature, albeit late in life. One book leads to another and the Queen is soon engrossed in the delights of reading. However, this uncommon reader creates an uncommon problem. The royal household dislikes the Queen's new…
Reading Historical Fiction as a youngster led me to study history at university – so the Tudors have been part of my life for about forty years now. After graduating with a Master’s degree, my career choice was easy. Of my thirteen novels, ten are Tudor, covering among others, the lives of Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York, Anne Boleyn, Katheryn Parr, Mary Tudor, and King Henry VIII himself. It isn’t necessarily ‘normal’ to live in such close proximity to the Tudors, but I would be hard pushed to write in a modern setting. Give me an ill-lit chamber, a royal banquet, or even a grisly beheading and I am perfectly at home.
This book provides a different angle on Jane Seymour. I’ve never particularly ‘liked’ fictional Janes because they are usually so one-dimensional but this author delves more deeply. Jane’s character is subtle. On the surface she seems meek but beneath the façade she is quite determined to get what she wants. Often, the modern ideal of strong women doesn’t sit well on historical figures but J. Wertman has understood that subterfuge was often the only way for a female, even a queen, to get her own way. Janet Wertman has written other engaging Tudor books but this is my favourite.
"One of the Best Books of 2016" - Open Letters Monthly; Finalist, 2016 Novel of the Year - Underground Book Reviews; Semi-Finalist - 2017 M.M. Bennetts Award
All Jane Seymour wants is a husband; but when she catches the eye of a volatile king, she is pulled deep into the Tudor court's realm of plot and intrigue....
England. 1535. Jane Seymour is 27 years old and increasingly desperate to marry and secure her place in the world. When the court visits Wolf Hall, the Seymour ancestral manor, Jane has the perfect opportunity to shine: her diligence, efficiency, and newfound poise…
I’m an American who was taken by his parents to live in England for a year when he was a kid of eleven. The accents? The traditions? The school uniforms? All the traffic tangled up for a day because the Queen was riding to the State Opening of Parliament? It frightened me. It repelled me. I ended up loving it. I wrote my PhD thesis on the Victorian monarchy. A substantial part of all three of my first nonfiction books are about it. My novel on the current Queen of England has been a bestseller. It’s all about setting out to master what first strikes you as incomprehensible.
This is another biography of the current queen that shows how the monarchy works. It differs from Sarah Bradford’s biography. Pimlott was a historical expert on the labour party during the twentieth century. He brought to his book all the skepticism about the crown that people on the political left traditionally have in Britain. Perhaps surprisingly, then, he comes out admiring Elizabeth II. He sticks much more narrowly than Bradford does to political crises in which the queen had some noted or decisive influence.
"There will be no better biography of Elizabeth II as a figure of state until her official one appears-and perhaps not even then."-The Independent. "One of the many merits of Ben Pimlott's superbly judicious biography of Elizabeth II is that it understands this connection between monarchy and masses, and carefully evokes its political importance."-The New York Times Book Review. "The best all-around study of the Queen so far, showing understanding as well as amused irony."-Sunday Telegraph. Written by Ben Pimlott, considered Britain's most respected political biographer, The Queen brings us the most authentic life yet of the reigning monarch. For…
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