I just finished The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. I loved it, and especially appreciated all the insight it provided into that period of history. It occurred to me that reading historical fiction might be a painless way for me to learn some British history, so now I am looking for recommendations.
We are visiting Yorkshire and Northumberland in May, so anything set in either of those places would be especially welcomed. I am not a history scholar (can’t you tell?) so anything reasonably accurate would suit me fine.
There’s Freedom & Necessity, which is dumped into fantasy instead of historical fiction because one of the characters is being pursued by a secret occult society, and maybe because Brust and Bull are both noted fantasy authors. Anyway, it’s set in Victorian England and involves the Chartist movement and reaction against the Corn Acts (I think it’s the Corn Acts). With special and lengthy guest appearance by Frederich Engels! And it’s an epistolary novel! What more could you want? Sex and violence, you say? It’s got that too! And did I mention the intrigue and mulitple conspiracies?
This is a children’s book, but Catherine, Called Birdy has always been a favorite of mine. God’s Thumbs!
Sharon Kay Penman (if I spelled her name right) has some good stuff about the War of the Roses, as well as some good stuff about the Welsh wars. Very good historic fiction. Dredging my memory, the titles were Here Be Dragons, When Christ and His Saints Slept, The Sunne in Splendor and The Reconning. There were a few more, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. These books give a lot of good historical background about England and Wales, and a bit of Scotland as well.
You could check out the Horatio Hornblower books as well if you want a bit later period…this gives some good insights into how the British military worked, with some good background on the people in the Navy especially.
Robin Maxwell has others as well that you may find interesting.
Margaret George has two that I’ve read twice each, one on Henry the VIII and one on Mary Queen of Scots. They’re both kind of sloggy books but are great reads!
If you want a great biography on Queen Elizabeth I read The First Elizabeth by Carolly Erickson. Historical information, great biography AND it reads like a novel! Some great pictures in there as well.
If you like mysteries, you may also consider Anne Perry. She writes Victorian mysteries, and her books always have historical figures and events woven into the plot. You may also learn a fact or two about the Crimean war.
Roberta Gellis has a whole historical romance series set in the time period of Richard I through Henry (whichever it was who succeeded John). She has a degree in medieval literature and works pretty hard to get the details right. In order, the books are [ul]
[li]Roselynde[/li][li]Alinor[/li][li]Joanna[/li][li]Gillian[/li][li]Rhiannon[/li][li]Sybelle.[/ul][/li]I can highly recommend them. They’re good stories, the women are strong characters, the history and politics are explained pretty well, and the societal details are interesting.
As an aside, I bought a whole batch of Anne Perry books after seeing PBS’s adaptation of The Cater Street Hangman. I’m selling them off/giving them to the local used bookstore because I feel weird having books written by her in my home. She’s one of the two girls from Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. I don’t know why it weirds me out, it just does.
Yes, she did commit a horrific crime, but I do believe that she is remorseful. Doesn’t change the facts, however.
If anyone saw the adaptation of Cater Street Hangman , don’t let that steer you off Anne Perry if you have never read her books. The movie did an awful job of the book, IMO.
I’m busy re-reading Sherwood by Parke Godwin right now.
It’s a pretty good take on the Robin Hood legend set during the period in which William was consolidating his hold on England after Hastings. It does a very good job of making the feel of the time come alive for the reader…especially the cultural conflict between William and his Norman vavasors and the salt of the earth Saxons.
I never said it was a reasonable reaction. (Though ghods know, it took me forever to be comfortable with the fact that emotions have little to do with logic.)
Oddly enough, seeing that adaptation is why I went out to buy the books. I enjoyed the first few, but later books just . . . started to seem boring. I suspect that’s part of the reason I’m getting rid of them, but being squicked is a bigger one.
If you like a bit of romance in addition to your historical information, Diana Gabaldon is fun. (Weird how often she has been mentioned on SDMB lately…) The first few novels in her Outlander series center around the second raising. You know, Bonnie Prince Charlie and that lot. Beware! Her books keep getting larger and larger.