Fans pick 100 books like WolfeBorn

Any historical romance that takes place in a library is good with me, but Amy Rose Bennett takes this to the next level in this gorgeous book.

With a heroine attempting to avoid marriage, and a widowed duke desperate for a wife, any wife, you can imagine the sizzle in this gorgeous book.

There are plenty of dukes in historical romance (and I love them!), but I adore this book with a titled lady and a common-born man.

The ‘trade’ elements in this steamy and highly emotional romance from Rebecca Aubrey got me gasping every chapter, and I couldn't walk away until this unusual marriage came together.

I have never found a modern-day author who encapsulates the roaring 1920s in such a resplendent as Emmanuelle de Maupassant: the humour, the wit, the descriptions of the Highlands which Emmanuelle knows so well, and of course, the mystery of eccentric relatives who are not what they seem.

I love this trilogy, with more than one unusual marriage...

The queen of histromcoms (yup, that's historical romcoms) Caroline Lee has a hilarious series that makes me laugh literally out loud - and so far, I've actually cried with laughter twice.

This is another governess story but this time with a Scottish laird, outrageous twins, and assassin mystery to boot. You shouldn't say no to this book.

How can I write about fierce women of the Middle Ages and not include the woman referred to by the sobriquet She-Wolf of France?

Carol McGrath’s The Stone Rose presents the story of Queen Isabella’s strength and determination framed around her ill-fated marriage to King Edward II in a beautiful tapestry threaded with both painstakingly researched historical fact and masterfully imaginative fiction.

The author’s extensive knowledge of the time period is evidenced by the accuracy of detail that is interwoven into the narrative. Since Edward’s reign forms the backdrop for my series, my own interest is obvious; however, the tale of Isabella’s struggle to protect herself and those she loves in the face of rampant intrigue and treachery will appeal to all.

"The Fair" Phillip IV of France died in 1314. His three sons ruled after him in turn, and none provided a legitimate heir, so when the youngest son, Charles IV, died in 1328, the Capetian dynasty, which had ruled France for over 300 years, came to an end. 

But Phillip IV had a daughter, Isabella, who had married Edward II of England, and so their son, the future Edward III, was the nearest male relative to the deceased Charles IV.

Isabella was adamant that her son was the legitimate heir to the French throne, and it was this claim that was pursued throughout the Hundred Years War and which was only relinquished in 1802.

Isabella has not had good press. Derided as "the she-wolf of France," she was an adulteress, waged war against her husband, and was probably complicit in his murder. In fairness, she had much to contend with. Edward II… show more.

Star-crossed lovers and a strong female heroine! This setting is the beginning of the end for the Plantagenets. Their royal court is turbulent—filled with secrets and enemies after the dramatic coup of the current king’s father, King Edward II (the events of which are featured in my book). When the beautiful and willful Joan of Kent, cousin to the royal family, is sent to live among them, she soon learns they’re the ones responsible for her father’s unjust execution and her family’s subsequent shame. Though the handsome and chivalrous Black Prince of Wales is falling at her feet, she twists his affection against him in an act of revenge, only allowing Fortune’s Wheel to turn once she decides it should be so.

This is a detailed study of what life would have been like at the Templars’ commandery at Temple Balsall in Warwickshire.

Its author, Eileen Gooder, was a leading scholar in local history and an expert on the Templars in England. The book is based on her unparalleled knowledge of the inventories that King Edward II of England ordered to be made of the Templars’ estates when the Templars were arrested in England in 1308 and the accounts kept by the royal officials who ran those estates until 1313.

Gooder also reconstructed the trial proceedings against the Balsall Templars and what became of them, and their English brethren, after the trial. This is an excellent, short, readable, and reliable introduction to the Templars’ lives in Europe.

Not a single book, but a series of (I think) eighteen. If you have a kid (or grandkid) who just might be showing an interest in all things Roman (or one you’d like to tweak in that direction), then you can’t do better than this. Set (initially, at least) in late-first-century Ostia, the books follow the adventures of sea-captain's daughter Flavia Gemina and her friends who battle nasties such as serial dog-killers and slave-traffickers – plus, eventually, running foul of Emperor Titus himself. Gripping stuff, an excellent read whether you’re child or adult, and Lawrence’s attention to historical detail is impeccable. With cameo appearances by, among others, Pliny the Elder (spoiler: he dies in the end).

A very early effort at a blood-soaked Roman tragedy written (at least partly) by England’s poet laureate. It throws its characters into a boiling cauldron of destructive evil, devising ghastly ways of killing most of them, and features one of the Elizabethan theatre’s most uncompromising villainous monsters, the racially profiled Aaron. It is customary among Shakespeare scholars to try to disown Titus for its lurid gratuitousness, but it does contain some fine poetic writing, brief flashes of the riches to come, and an anticipation of the subtler malevolence that would come to dominate the English stage in the succeeding Jacobean era. Those inclined to celebrate chaos as a purely constructive force might profit from lingering amid Shakespeare’s horrors.