In 1810 Wellington needs to protect his army against Napoleon’s stronger forces in the Peninsula. His answer? The Lines of Torres Vedras: one of the greatest defensive works the world has ever seen. But for his strategy to work, the Lines must stay a secret until the French arrive. Fresh from a successful mission in […]
Wellington’s biggest Peninsular War secret
Tom Williams writes about the Lines of Torres Vedras in Portugal, Wellington’s biggest secret (in terms of size, anyway) during the Peninsular War against Napoleon. Today (7 April) sees the publication of the latest of my stories about Napoleonic-era spy, James Burke. Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras is set in Portugal in 1810. […]
Historia interviews: 2022 HWA Gold Crown Award shortlist: Natasha Pulley
Natasha Pulley was shortlisted for the 2022 Gold Crown Award for her novel The Kingdoms. Readers of her books, including The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, won’t be surprised that the judges loved its compelling strangeness, calling it: “An intricate, immersive tale set in an alternative Britain, where Napoleon won the war and French is spoken […]
Sailor of Liberty by JD Davies
In 1793 the infant French republic is assailed on all sides, by enemies within and the combined might of the great European monarchies without. A fanatical regime has taken power in Paris. In the midst of these upheavals, Philippe Kermorvant, son of an English aristocrat and a French nobleman, arrives in Brittany, his father’s homeland, […]
Are we the bad guys? Writing naval historical fiction from the French point of view
Mention the ‘classic age’ of naval historical fiction and most people immediately think of the ‘age of Nelson’, Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. The gallant British Navy, hearts of oak and the Battle of Trafalgar. But there are two sides to every story, as JD Davies writes, and his new series takes the […]
Sharpe’s Assassin by Bernard Cornwell
Paris, 1815. Richard Sharpe is a man with a reputation. Born in the gutter, raised a foundling, he’s the army’s loose cannon – but also its most formidable weapon. With violence brewing in the aftermath of Waterloo, and a secretive group of revolutionaries hell-bent on avenging Napoleon’s defeat, Sharpe is called to the front line: […]
Burke and the Pimpernel Affair by Tom Williams
It’s 1809, and when a mission running agents into Napoleon’s France goes horribly wrong, it’s up to Burke to save the day. With the French secret police on his trail, can he stay alive long enough to free British spies from imprisonment in the centre of Paris? And how does the Empress Josephine fit into […]
Asylums and prisons: locking women away in madhouses
Nicola Pryce tells Historia about the historical background to her latest novel, which touches on various kinds of imprisonment; the most shocking is the 18th-century practice of locking inconvenient women away in madhouses, as she explains. The Cornish Captive is the sixth novel in my Cornish series. My heroine is mentioned before in passing but […]