Here are 90 books that The Godmother's Secret fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been fascinated by England’s medieval queens since picking up a copy of Norah Lofts’ Queens of Britain as a child. I studied Archaeology at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, focussing on the Anglo-Saxons. While my PhD and later work primarily focuses on the Tudor period, I have remained passionate about medieval queenship, writing the first biography of Queen Elfrida, as well as a longer book, England’s Queens, containing mini-biographies of every woman who served as reigning queen, consort or king’s wife. It has been a pleasure to share my top picks (from amongst many other wonderful titles), which I feel really bring England’s medieval queens to life.
My next pick takes us right up to the end of the medieval period, with David Baldwin’s highly readable biography of Elizabeth Woodville. While the legitimacy of Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth is still hotly debated, she was undoubtedly presented to the world as his queen. Through his highly detailed research, Baldwin is able to add fine detail to a woman whose life was filled with drama and tragedy. In this biography, the woman emerges from behind the queen.
Elizabeth Woodville is a historical character whose life no novelist would ever have dared invent. She has been portrayed as an enchantress, as an unprincipled advancer of her family's fortunes and a plucky but pitiful queen in Shakespeare's histories. She has been alternatively championed and vilified by her contemporaries and five centuries of historians, dramatists and novelists, but what was she really like?
In this revealing account of Elizabeth's life David Baldwin sets out to tell the story of this complex and intriguing woman. Was she the malign influence many of her critics held her to be? Was she a…
I am a British writer/producer with a 30-year interest in Richard III (1452-1485). A visit to Bosworth Field, the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses changed my life irrevocably. This haunting place captured my imagination and with it the story of the last Plantagenet monarch who died fighting in this small corner of Leicestershire for crown and country.
Following Edward IV’s death in 1483, his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was found to be bigamous and their children declared illegitimate. The crown then passed to Edward’s younger brother, Richard III, who was elected king. For centuries the story of Edward IV’s bigamy was believed to be a concoction. In this seminal work, John Ashdown-Hill brings to light the story of Eleanor Talbot, Edward IV’s legal wife.
When Edward IV died in 1483, the Yorkist succession was called into question by doubts about the legitimacy of his sons (the 'Princes in the Tower'). The crown therefore passed to Edward IV's undoubtedly legitimate younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. But Richard, too, found himself entangled in the web of uncertainly, since those who believed in the legitimacy of Edward IV's children viewed Richard III's own accession with suspicion.
From the day that Edward IV married Eleanor, or pretended to do so, the House of York, previously so secure in its bloodline, confronted a contentious and uncertain future. John…
I am a British writer/producer with a 30-year interest in Richard III (1452-1485). A visit to Bosworth Field, the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses changed my life irrevocably. This haunting place captured my imagination and with it the story of the last Plantagenet monarch who died fighting in this small corner of Leicestershire for crown and country.
The murder of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ is the most famous cold case in British history. Matthew Lewis delves into the context of the disappearance and the characters of the suspects and asks a crucial but often overlooked question: what if there was no murder? Lewis provides a rounded and complete assessment of this most fascinating historical mystery.
The murder of the Princes in the Tower is the most famous cold case in British history. Traditionally considered victims of a ruthless uncle, there are other suspects too often and too easily discounted. There may be no definitive answer, but by delving into the context of their disappearance and the characters of the suspects Matthew Lewis examines the motives and opportunities afresh as well as asking a crucial but often overlooked question: what if there was no murder? What if Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York survived their uncle's reign and even that of their brother-in-law…
My whole family shared a love for classic British mysteries, especially light-hearted, witty ones. With the enduring popularity of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, people sometimes forget there were lots of other great writers from the “golden age” of mysteries. I first found most of these books on my parents’ bookshelves when I was a bored teenager growing up in snowy central Maine. Several of the paperbacks were so well-worn the cellophane was peeling off their covers. For me, reading classic mysteries is like listening to Mozart—they are endlessly stirring and fascinating, and in the end, order is restored, and all is right with the world.
This book is one of my favorite mysteries of all time. It addresses one of the great unsolved mysteries in English history: Did Richard III kill the princes in the tower? Tey’s sleuth, Alan Grant, is a dogged investigator, and, in the hospital with a broken leg, he treats this historical mystery like a contemporary murder. His step-by-step investigation pulled me in and convinced me that Richard Plantagenet has been mistreated by history.
Miss Tey is so convincing that she inspired me to write the (very innocent) ghost of Richard III into one of my own mystery novels after the monarch’s body was found under a Midlands car park in 2012.
_________________________ Josephine Tey's classic novel about Richard III, the hunchback king whose skeleton was famously discovered in a council car park, investigates his role in the death of his nephews, the princes in the Tower, and his own death at the Battle of Bosworth.
Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was villified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king's reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the…
As a child, I was drawn to the silences in family stories and as a young adult, the gaps in official records. Now I’m a former English professor turned full-time writer who is fascinated with who gets written out of history, and why. I love exploring overlooked lives, especially women’s lives—from Stalin’s female relatives to nineteenth-century shopgirls, and most recently, a pair of early medieval queens.
I love gorgeous sentences alongside a good mystery, and Wroe expertly crafts both. A decade after the Princes in the Tower were presumed murdered, a charismatic young man appeared, claiming to be the younger of the two princes—Richard, Duke of York. His enemies, though, said he was a boatman’s son named Perkin Warbeck. So who was he really? Wroe’s meditation on appearance and identity has even more resonance in the Instagram-era than it did when it was first published. What does it mean to “look the part”? And what matters most—who we think we are, or who others think we might be?
In 1491, as Machiavelli advised popes and princes and Leonardo da Vinci astonished the art world, a young man boarded a ship in Portugal bound for Ireland. He would be greeted upon arrival as the rightful heir to the throne of England. The trouble was, England already had a king.
The most intriguing and ambitious pretender in history, this elegant young man was celebrated throughout Europe as the prince he claimed to be: Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the “Princes in the Tower” who were presumed to have been murdered almost a decade earlier. Handsome, well-mannered, and charismatic,…
As a fantasy writer, I love to play with possibilities and invent new words for our experiences. I find that humorous fantasy is especially powerful in this regard because it pairs possibilities with absurdity, coming at reality sideways or backwards, putting everyday life into a new and more interesting light. Humor has the unique ability to transcend genres, from thrillers to cozy mysteries. It helps you process difficult emotions, or lift your spirits when the world feels a little too dark. These are some of my favorites within this category, and they all happen to be the first books in a series (you’re welcome). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
This is a fast-paced mystery with a fun twist on the themes of discovered powers and secret magical communities.
While at work in a funeral home, Cassie Black discovers she is somehow bringing the dead to life.
In this world, the undead are charming and magic is replenished by cake, which is just loads of fun to imagine (and makes me want to go bake something in hopes it might unlock my own secret powers).
I really enjoyed the way this story juxtaposes light and dark themes, staying pretty amusing throughout while exploring some painful topics like childhood trauma without traumatizing the reader.
Work at a funeral home can be mundane. Until you accidentally start bringing the dead back to life.
"...a clever, hilarious romp through a new magical universe" --Sarah Angleton, author of Gentleman of Misfortune
Cassie Black works at a funeral home. She's used to all manner of dead bodies. What she's not used to is them waking up. Which they seem to be doing on a disturbingly regular basis lately.
Just when Cassie believes she has the problem under control, the recently-deceased Busby Tenpenny insists he's been murdered and claims Cassie might be responsible thanks to a wicked brand of…
I enjoy reading books that have an element of excitement, the element of the chase appeals, as does the idea of an ordinary citizen being caught up by accident or coincidence in either international espionage or terrorist situations. I have devoted many years to writing, and have written up to 20 novels of which four have so far been published, mainly on themes as described above, or in the espionage field similar to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy where the investigator, starting from scratch, is attempting to trace a mole within the organisation.
The main character becomes accidentally involved in international intrigue when he breaks into a house formerly owned by his father, which has become a government establishment. He becomes the target of both the British security services and the Russians, who believe he knows more than he does about the secret work carried on at the establishment. The book deals with his adventures and means of evading both Moscow and MI5.
I like and recommend this book, and others by this author, because of the theme of an ordinary individual being drawn into intention intrigue and finding his life in danger, together with what he does to evade capture both by the enemy and the police. Household also wrote his books with a cynical humour at times which I find absorbing.
A brilliant story of espionage and disguise from the original master of spy fiction. From the author of the modern classic ROGUE MALE
Claudio Howerd-Wolferstan is neither a communist nor a spy. Yet he breaks into a top-security Government hostel to retrieve the family treasure.
With a spot secured on the wanted lists of both the British police and Russian communist leaders, he is forced to run from a charge of high treason. A master of disguise, he bluffs his way out of many a dangerous situation and outwits his pursuers. But how long can his luck last?
I have been a passionate time traveler since my school days, gobbling down as many books as I could find on castles, galleons, pyramids, and anything else besides. Writing about the past has released me from the present day, and taught me about my own origins. When a reader picks up one of my books, I hope that they’ll follow me back in time for an adventure that brings the past to life and tells us something about ourselves. These books are, in fact, much more than mere books; they are a portal to history, and I thoroughly recommend them.
Ned Ward was a tavern keeper in the early 1700s, and this little-known book offers an extraordinary time capsule. It allows the reader to travel back some three hundred years to the grimy streets of London that feel at once alien and familiar.
The lions and other exotic animals in the Tower of London, the freshly-domed St Paul’s Cathedral, the filth and noise, the danger and the stink. All of it is here, not to mention the fabulous dialect of the time, offering the most wonderful dictionary of terms for sex workers, thieves, lawyers, and every trade imaginable. All history fans should read this book.
Ned Ward pioneered the literary exploration of the life and character of late 17th-century London, and delighted in challenging the assumed superiority of `literary' language over the `vulgar' -and the reaction he provoked among the guardians of Augustan culture. The London Spy, based upon the author's personal knowledge and experiences, recounts the fictitious adventures of a wide-eyed country bumpkin at large in the teeming metropolis of villains, whores and hucksters at the turn of the century. The Spy's adventures take him not only around the famous sights and monuments of the capital such as Bridewell, Bedlam and the Tower of…
I wholeheartedly believe that embracing your geeky side is an important part of life and self-discovery. When romance novels incorporate nerdiness, it gives characters (and therefore readers) the ability to understand themselves and what they want on another level, and to gain the courage to pursue what they want. I know that my own forays into TTRPGs, LARPing, Ren Faires, and other such interests have helped shape me as a person. I’m more confident and embodied because I embrace my inner geek, and I want that for my characters and my readers, too. That’s why I want to read and write as many of these stories as possible!
This rom-com is as lighthearted and fun as it gets, but it maintains the nerdy bent we’re all here for. I love LARPing, and this book paints it in the most exciting light! I loved how Daisy used her alter ego, Lade Alenthaea, on her journey to growth, and how this story kept the agency around her personal growth firmly in Daisy’s own hands.
She's no damsel in distress, and he's certainly not wearing shining armour. But one knight can change everything...
Daisy Hastings has always thought she was born in the wrong era. So when she bags a summer job at the Tower of London helping to run their Knight school, it feels like a step in the right direction.
Theodore 'Teddy' Fairfax is a loose cannon. A disgraced distant relative of the royal family, he's tall, dark and now (begrudgingly) helping with the Tower of London's summer programme - and there's nowhere he'd like to be less.
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,…
