My life in books

In 2013, Some of the historical novels I read were actually re-reads of books I had first read a rather long time ago. First among these were the Brothers of Gwynedd series by Edith Pargeter. I've long been entranced by the history (and mythology) of Wales, an interest that probably goes back to my first explorations of the King Arthur myths, or perhaps to the publication of Evangeline Walton's four-part adaptation of The Mabinogion published in the early 1970s.

In any event, the bloody and tragic story of the last Prince of an independent Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd has long been a favourite subject of mine, one I first read about in Pargeter's quartet. Sharon Kaye Penman has also written an excellent series of books about the disastrous wars with England and the final conquest of Wales, but there's nothing wrong with having several versions of the same story. 

Edith Pargeter, The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet
Sunrise in the West
Dragon at Noonday
The Hounds of Sunset
Afterglow and Nightfall


When I was young, Rosemary Sutcliff was one of my favourite authors, and with the recent film based on the book, The Eagle of the Ninth, many of her books are becoming more available again, which means that this is the perfect time to re-read some of the books I loved. And even though these two series, set in a more historic Roman Britain and a far less historic court of King Arthur, were originally ibtended as yiung adult books, Ifound that despite the years, I enjoy them still.

Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles
The Eagle of the Ninth
The Silver Branch
The Lantern Bearers

Rosemary Sutcliff, The King Arthur Trilogy
The Sword and the Circle
The Light Beyond the Forest
The Road to Camlann

Here Be Dragons, Sharon Kay Penman

Sharon Kay Penman is one of my favourite writers of historical fiction, and not just because she writes well, remains reasonably faithful to what is known about her subjects, and breathes into her characters a sense of life and truth. in addition to all of that, she seems to have a gift for picking out the people and periods of history that I find fascinating. Here Be Dragons is the story of the relationship between Llewelyn ab Iorwerth, Llewelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd and unifier of much of Wales, and Joanna (or Joan), the natural daughter of King John of England. I have read this book, and the others in Penman's Princes of Wales trilogy before, and was delighted to find that it was just as enjoyable on re-reading.



Nefertiti, Michelle Moran

I have always been fascinated by the Amarna period in Egyptian history. There is so much that is known, and yet so much that remains tantalizingly unknown about the family of Akhenaton, and this leave open a great deal of space for a writer to present her own theories about the family relationships, about who married who and who died and was buried when. Moran has some interesting ideas about the court of Amarna in this, her debut novel, but I found that she stretched the boundaries perhaps a bit too much, leaving me sceptical of her choices in some places. However, I enjoyed the looking at one vision of the story of Nefertiti, told from the perspective of Mutnodjmet, historically the wife of Pharoah Horemheb, and in this book presented as being the same person as Nefertiti's sister Mutbenret. I look forward to following Moran's growth as a writer.




Lady MacBeth, Susan Fraser King

A well-written and well-researched debut novel about a character who is barely known to history, but famous in literature as the ambitious wife of the Scottish lord who claimed the throne of Scotland - in Shakespeare's version, through treason and murder, but then, Shakespeare was writing for an audience that included the royal descendant of people who opposed MacBeth. Not as daring an interpretation of history as Dunnett's King Hereafter, this is all the same a realistic visualisation of what it could have been like, and Gruach - Lady MacBeth - is presented as a strong, if not always admirable, woman who survived and wielded power in dangerous and troubled times. Looking forward to King's next novel.