Historical (but well-researched) writers

Edward Rutherford, I've read London and Sarum. Clever idea taking several families and following their changing fortunes down the centuries, pre BC until modern times. I'll have to try another it was a while ago I read those two.

missdeke

Scribbles

Edward Rutherford - his sweeping, centuries-long sagas such as Sarum, London, New York etc, have had me hooked from their opening paragraphs.

Brilliant books, I've have those three and Dublin. He's also done one on China and another on Russia but I've never found them.

Both can be found on Amazon

Edward Rutherford - good but hefty reads

Mrsdof

I loved Philippa Gregory, Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton. My all time favourite book is Katherine by Anya Seton. It is the true love story between John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Their great granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, was the mother of Henry Tudor who became Henry VII. I have read it three times over the years and never tire of it.

Same here! I absolutely loved Katherine. I was 13 when I read it and still think of it to this day. Just recently, as I do every year around now, I found myself thinking "the tender green time of April" while admiring the beautiful spring foliage and blossom all around.
It could surely have made a wonderful film.
My second favourite Anya Seton is Green Darkness, which is set in the 60s but interweaves the story of a girl who was 'walled up' in the 16th century because she was expecting the child of a monk. The setting for this is Ightham Mote in Kent, which is one of the best preserved medieval manor houses in the country. I've always meant to visit it.

Max Hastings, Dan Jones and Jan Riley. If you are really interested in history.

Alison Weir is unsurpassed in my opinion. Her knowledge of history is obvious but she doesn’t let it get in the way of a good story. My Lady Elizabeth is the first book of hers that I read and it is very well written. It is about Elizabeth I and I learned a lot while enjoying a cracking story. I think my favourite is Innocent Traitor, which is about Lady Jane Grey. Again, the machinations of the family and the Tudor court are well described and the story is very well written. Even though we all know the tragic ending, we are still rooting for Jane and need a handkerchief at the inevitable conclusion.

Matthew Lewis
Nathen Amin
Peter Ackroyd
Tracy Borman
Gareth Russell
Steven Veerapen
Marc Morris
Linda Porter
Suzannah Lipscomb
Nicola Tallis
Claire Ridgway

Don’t think Philippa Gregory is regarded as particularly historically accurate.

Scribbles

Edward Rutherford - his sweeping, centuries-long sagas such as Sarum, London, New York etc, have had me hooked from their opening paragraphs.

Brilliant books, I've have those three and Dublin. He's also done one on China and another on Russia but I've never found them.

Highly recommend The Five by Halle Rubenhold. Gripping account of the Ripper's victims and their backgrounds. Eye-opening portrait of patriarchal society.

Wheniwasyourage

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - the Dynasty series goes from the Wars of the Roses in England to 1935 in 35 volumes about a Yorkshire family. The first one I read was set in 1912, so although the same family features all the way through, you don't have to read them in sequence if you don't want to.

Yes absolutely Wheniwasyourage, Cynthia Harrold -Eagles for me too.
Her books are so authentic & exicting, it's like going back to another place in time. If I could only take one author's books with me to a desert island, then they would be all of hers. I would never be bored. 😊

Yes, the best writers may take a bit of poetic license now and again to roll the plot along but the manners, customs, food and drink, clothes, expressions used and so on all seem authentic to me from what I know.
There are many self published books out there that I would avoid.

Oreo

M0nica

How do you know whether an author is historically well researched?

Yes, a good question 😁
I think it’s when you realise that you’ve learned a lot, even tho it’s a novel, about everyday life in a certain time period. I like the authors who bring in facts without it being a clumsy insertion but simply part of what’s happening, and done seamlessly.

But you have got to know what the facts are in any given period. This is more than dates and events, it is understanding the cultural norms governing people's everyday life in the period the book is set.

I loved Philippa Gregory, Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton. My all time favourite book is Katherine by Anya Seton. It is the true love story between John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Their great granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, was the mother of Henry Tudor who became Henry VII. I have read it three times over the years and never tire of it.

Love the Tudor period and Hillary Mantell beats all.

My favourite is Mary Queen of Scots for me a woman who knew her own mind and stuck to it, a woman before her time.

Edward Rutherford - his sweeping, centuries-long sagas such as Sarum, London, New York etc, have had me hooked from their opening paragraphs.

Literary Fiction rather than historical but the Sebastian Faulks Trilogy on the First World War was incredibly well written and very moving.

Denis Wheatley, especially his Napoleonic era saga, Roger Brook I think was the randy hero! We 'did' the Napoleonic period for O level history and my teacher was very complimentary about the amount of extra reading I had done in the subject!

Definitely Phillipa Gregor, also Hilary Mantell, CJ Sansum. S J Parris, Anne Chadwick. Alison Weir and Andrew Taylor. I too am fond of the Tudor period, the end of the Plantagenets and The Stuarts.

I read recently, on the subject of historical fiction and Mary Renault’s novels in particular, that whereas some historical writers are too impressed by their own research, writers like Hilary Mantel and Mary Renault (who Mantel greatly admired) “hold up their lens so close to the readers eye that it is invisible”. I’ve never seen a better, more apt description.

So sad about CJ Sansom I was really hoping for a final book in the Matthew Shardlake series...love all is books. Also loved Winter in Madrid

Tracey Chevalier - The Lady and the Unicorn for that period. The historical detail felt authentic and drove me to search out and visit the Cluny tapestries in Paris on a subsequent visit. (I’ve read others by her - always an unrealistic and irritating romance chucked in, but I always feel that I’ve learned something.
Kate Mosse - early modern history.

It was Zola’s Germinal that made me politically aware in my late teens.

Alison Weir is definitely well researched. I’m reading her non fiction Henry VIII which is incredibly detailed.
It follows that her fiction will be along the same lines.

I also loved the CJ Sandom series. His writing really brings the Tudor period alive. Shardlake is a wonderful character.