HISTORICAL ELIZABETH BUCHAN
BOOK four of the superb Kingmaker series dramatises the ongoing violent and bloody struggles between the lancastrians and Yorkists. it is 1470, and the Yorkist Edward iV has fallen out with the Kingmaker, the Earl of Warwick, and the country suffers. Having survived thus far, Thomas and Katherine Everingham are raising their family at Marton Hall in lincolnshire. They are neither powerful nor rich, but they hide gamechanging secrets and, having first-hand experience of brutal shifts in power, must keep their defences ready.
The danger, privations and brutalities of medieval life are brilliantly rendered by Clements. The fear is palpable, the characters terrific and the ebb and flow of a messy civil war grabbed me by the throat. (Simon & Schuster £20) WiTH their immaculate research, pacy narratives and a stubborn insistence that history is not only about men, philippa gregory’s bestselling novels have opened up plantagenet and Tudor history for many.
The three grey sisters, closely related to the Tudors, are the focus for plots to take advantage of the uncertainty after the death of Edward Vi and between the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. They pay for it. Jane is beheaded after just nine days as Queen.
Katherine is dispatched to the Tower and Mary, a beautiful dwarf, suffers at the hands of Elizabeth for years. possibly the author’s final Tudor novel, their voices — pious Jane, passionate Katherine, resourceful Mary — are a powerful reminder of how precarious the lives of Tudor women could be. (Zaffre, £12.99) SEppE is an italian prisoner-ofwar deployed on duties in the Forest of Dean. Connie, her family wiped out by bombs, is recruited into the Women’s Timber Corps and is now a lumberjill there — a job she takes to with gusto.
Will working in an ancient and peaceful woodland help them both come to terms with their difficult pasts and uncertain futures?
Sarah Franklin’s debut explores the impact of war on lives out of the front line. it takes a little while to settle into and, in places, the writing would have benefited from a little pruning. However, its characters pulse with life and energy — Connie’s snippy, contrary longings and Seppe’s difficult journey to inner peace are vividly rendered, as is the evocation of the forest and its healing qualities.