In West Berlin in 1989, eighteen-year-old Ralf has just left school and is living a final golden summer with his three best friends. They spend their days swimming, smoking and daydreaming about the future, oblivious to the storm gathering on the other side of the Berlin Wall. But an unsettling discovery about his family and […]
Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior by Catherine Hanley
A life of Matilda: empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages. Matilda was a daughter, wife, and mother. But she was also empress, heir to the English crown – the first woman ever to hold the position – and an able military general. This new biography explores […]
Historia interview: Catherine Hanley
Dr Catherine Hanley is a historian who started her career as an academic before deciding that there were better and more fun ways to engage with public interest in all things medieval. She now writes about the Middle Ages for a wider audience under her own name, historical fiction as CB Hanley, and more non-fiction […]
The Foundling by Stacey Halls
London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London’s Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, she is astonished when she is told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries […]
Cross of Fire by David Gilman
Winter, 1362. After years of successful campaigning in France, Thomas Blackstone, a common archer knighted at Crécy, has rised to become Edward III’s Master of War. But the title is as much a curse as a blessing. Success has brought few rewards: his family – bar his son Henry – are dead, slaughtered; his enemies […]
The King’s Evil by Andrew Taylor
A royal scandal. In the Court of Charles II, it’s a dangerous time to be alive – a wrong move may lead to disgrace, exile or death. The discovery of a body at the home of one of the highest courtiers in the land could therefore have catastrophic consequences. James Marwood, a traitor’s son, is […]
A Tapestry of Treason by Anne O’Brien
1399: Constance of York, Lady Despenser, proves herself more than a mere observer in the devious intrigues of her magnificently dysfunctional family, The House of York. Surrounded by power-hungry men, including her aggressively self-centred husband Thomas and ruthless siblings Edward and Richard, Constance places herself at the heart of two treasonous plots against King Henry […]
Tokens of love: the moving objects left by mothers at the Foundling Hospital
Stacey Halls, author of The Familiars, writes for Historia about the inspiration behind her latest book, The Foundling: tokens left by mothers to help identify the babies they gave up at the Foundling Hospital in London. Some are beautiful, some simple, but all are poignant reminders of desperation and loss. A pink silk purse. A […]