There were many powerful female rulers during the early medieval period, but few records of them exist. Luckily a historical fluke has left accounts of two of them: the Frankish queens, Fredegund and Brunhild, as Shelley Puhak explains. On 14 April, 586, the cathedral of Rouen was crowded with the faithful, eager to celebrate the […]
Review: The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola
Essie Fox reviews a new historical crime mystery set in 18th-century Paris which ranges from the slums of Paris to the glittering halls of Versailles and takes in true crime, ingenious inventions, Enlightenment philosophy and the journey of three young women who struggle to take power over their own lives: The Clockwork Girl by Anna […]
The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak
Brunhild was a Visigothic princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet – in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport – these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms […]
The women agents behind the D-Day invasion
The Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June, 1944 – D-Day – is one of the most recognisable events of the Second World War, thanks not just to its importance militarily but to its coverage in books and films. Less well known is the complex and secret process of planning the invasion, and the significant […]
The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford
Chrissie Gillies comes from the last ever community to live on the beautiful, isolated Scottish island of St Kilda. Evacuated in 1930, she will never forget her life there, nor the man she loved and lost who visited one fateful summer a few years before. Fred Lawson has been captured, beaten and imprisoned in Nazi-controlled […]
Agincourt: Why the English Won
My historical novel, The Agincourt Bride, focused on Catherine, youngest daughter of King Charles the Sixth of France and the princess so charmingly introduced by Shakespeare in the closing scenes of King Henry the Fifth. The trophy wife Henry wooed and won as the victor of the Battle of Agincourt, presenting himself as a plain-speaking, […]
Lies, Damned Lies and Historical ‘Facts’
It’s that time again: publication of a new book. Two years’ work – or in this case rather more, if we include the research – launches out into the world and we find out if those outside the charmed and charming circle of our publishers, friends and fellow authors, want to read it enough to […]