Claire | November 17, 2011
Twenty years after the publication of his first book on Mary I, “Mary Tudor: A Life”, David Loades has released a brand new biography of Mary. In the preface of this new book, Loades writes of how he has not changed his mind about her but that he has “rethought aspects of her life and [...]
Claire | September 14, 2011
This review is of the UK paperback two volume series “The Tudors” by G J Meyer which is split into two books: Henry VII to Henry VIII and Lady Jane Grey to Elizabeth I. The books are described by the publisher, Amberley, as “the complete story of England’s most notorious dynasty” and Meyer does do [...]
Claire | February 8, 2011
“The Tudor Secret” is the latest novel from C W Gortner, author of “The Last Queen” and “The Confessions of Catherine de Medici”, and I was excited about reading it when I heard that it was actually the first book in a series called “The Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles” and was described as being “filled [...]
Claire | September 20, 2010
The Tudors series, with the excellent Sarah Bolger playing Mary, and Linda Porter’s biography have definitely helped me to empathise with Mary and understand the woman behind the “Bloody Mary” myth, so I was desperate to read this new book on Mary by historian Anna Whitelock, a former student of David Starkey. In her Huffington [...]
Claire | August 16, 2010
A few weeks ago, I did a post about recent and upcoming historical fiction books and today I’m going to focus on non-fiction history books and biographies of historical characters within the Tudor and Elizabethan periods:- Margaret Beaufort: The Mother of the Tudor Dynasty by Elizabeth Norton – Due to be released in the UK [...]
Claire | February 11, 2010
With it being the anniversary of Lady Jane Grey’s execution tomorrow I thought it was fitting for me to publish my review of Eric Ives’s biography “Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery”. If you keep up with my posts on The Anne Boleyn Files, you will know that I am Professor Ives’s number one fan [...]
Claire | December 9, 2009
“The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The Tragedy of Katherine, Mary and Lady Jane Grey” is a non-fiction account of the stories of these three sisters, the times they lived in and the monarchs who reigned in their lifetimes. I was desperate to read this after reading Jeane Westin’s historical novel, “The Virgin’s Daughters”, and [...]
Claire | July 7, 2009
As you all know, I am first and foremost an Anne Boleyn fan but I love Tudor history as a whole and seem to spend all of my spare time reading biographies of other Tudor personalities – people who lived at the same time as Anne. I’ve just finished reading “Mary Tudor: The First Queen” [...]
