Just finished a really fine historical novel--Tudors

11 years ago

I am not a fan of Henry VIII--don't like him and it's not my period at all and it's also so overdone and often so badly as well. But I just finished Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle, a novel of Katherine Parr, Henry's last wife and the only one (other than Anne of Cleves) who survived him.

It's extremely well written, with the kind of authority you rarely find--Hilary Mantel comes to mind--and I highly recommend it, even if like me, you're just not that into the Tudors. And if you are, well, this is the real deal.

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Rosefolly z5

11 years ago

I picked up a SKP book years ago and set it aside, bored. She is said to be such a fine writer that I think I really do have to try again. Here Be Dragons is the first, so maybe I'll start with that one.

I have put in a request for it, and also for Queen's Gambit, at my local public library.

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Rosefolly z5
11 years ago
By interesting coincidence, I am a fan of another novel also called The Queen's Gambit. It is Walter Tevis's novel about a young woman chess champion. Perhaps I'll give this one a try as well!
laceyvail 6A, WV
Original Author
11 years ago
I've always thought it funny that book titles can't be copywrited. I expect it causes on going confusion in some cases. Do give it a try, Rosefolly.
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annpanagain
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I recall a problem about same titled books in 1950s UK when paper was scarce. A novel called "Lady in Waiting" was published just as the same title was in production, written by the very popular author Dornford Yates. The publishers couldn't afford to waste the book jacket paper so cross-printed it over the original artwork as "Wife Apparent".A Google search shows the jacket with the amended artwork.
blue_jean_baby
11 years ago
I will go look for it at my library. Sounds intriguing! I read Wolf Hall but I'm waiting on the 2nd book until the 3rd is published - has anyone heard when that will be? I had a little trouble with the style at first, but once I got into it I found it a good read.

I do like the Tudor era - bur I am a Richard III fan. ( And Elizabeth I.) It can get hard to find decent books, especially fiction, of a time period as popular as Tudor England. There's a ready market and so some hogwash gets published as well as the good stuff. So many are made up out of whole cloth and I just want to fling them at their writers' heads! Good fiction can still have a grounding in fact. Happily for me, these days more and more folks with degrees in history are writing fiction and mysteries so they are much better and I don't get nearly as as fed up as I used to.

There was so much upheaval in the world in those years. Books were more widely available (at least among the middle & upper classes ) and that played a large part, I think. Upheaval and social change are great fodder for books.

Karen Harper has a good series featuring Queen Elizabeth, just started re-reading them - mysteries - the first is The Poyson Garden.
carolyn_ky
11 years ago
Blue Jean Baby, I'm assuming you have read Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey? And Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters? And are you watching Wolf Hall on Masterpiece Theater? All grist for your mill.
blue_jean_baby
11 years ago
Daughter of Time is one of my favorite books, I re-read it every couple of years. Haven't read the Peters book - but I will look for it. And no, not watching Wolf Hall. If I like a book I don't always like how they change it for tv/movies. Sometimes I watch the not-book version but I don't make a point of doing so.
Kath
11 years ago
Rosefolly, I've read the Tevis novel too, many years ago.

Blue Jean Baby, I'm another Ricardian, from my reading many years ago of Sharon Penman's The Sunne in Splendour.

Just finished a really fine historical novel--Tudors

Rosefolly z5

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Rosefolly z5

laceyvail 6A, WV
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Just finished a really fine historical novel--Tudors

Rosefolly z5

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Rosefolly z5

laceyvail 6A, WVOriginal Author

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laceyvail 6A, WV
Original Author