The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Summer Reads from Aspects of HistoryLucy Ashe Author of The Sleeping BeautiesThe Eights is Joanna Miller’s debut novel that combines fascinating historical research with the creation of four compelling female characters, The Eights is set at St Hugh’s College, Oxford,...
It’s perhaps true that for some of us, our understanding of early 17th century England stems from the closing chapters of classroom textbooks on the Tudors, often ending with the infamous Gunpowder Plot. Paying in Blood, however, draws our focus away from familiar...
Karen, congratulations on your new novel, Naming the Dead. How has the story moved on from the first in the series, Paying in Blood? It is exciting to release my second Alexander Baxby mystery, set in Amsterdam during the so-called Dutch Golden Age. The action follows...
Mary, Queen of Scots has traditionally been perceived as a queen who let her emotions overcome her reason, as someone who let her heart rule her head. It’s a dismissive attitude that is often used to compare her, unfavourably, to Queen Elizabeth I, who is seen instead...
Views on age and life’s milestones have changed over time. In the last century average life expectancy exceeded what we would call middle age for the first time and in the process changed perspectives. Empress Matilda, one of the subjects of Eighteen, married Henry V...
The Great Siege of Malta, by Marcus Bull The military phenomenon of the siege, Marcus Bull reminds us, has a long history in the western literary tradition. And yet, despite their famous literary instances, such as the siege of Jericho as detailed in the Old Testament...
The fifteenth century is generally accepted as beginning the Age of Discovery - or at least the discovery of the wider world by European powers. In Spice: The Sixteenth-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World, Roger Crowley has set himself the task of bringing to...
The world of Elizabethan spiery is a crowded one – but, in Shadow of Poison, Peter Tonkin once again demonstrates why he stands head and shoulders above the crowd. Given his history of writing thrillers and Elizabethan fiction, Tonkin is a master of genre and era. His...
Karen Haden, what first attracted you to the period in which you write, and historical fiction in general? Having previously worked as a consultant for intelligence and cyber security agencies, I was drawn to the Tudor and Stewart years, with their complex mix of...
Books of 2023 from Aspects of HistoryAlan Bardos Author of The Dardanelles ConspiracyIt’s been a great year for fiction and non-fiction, but these books are my first amongst equals. Every Spy a Traitor by Alex Gerlis follows Agent Archie, a Russian mole in MI6 across...
