100 Books Like To Be A Queen

This book was like a fisherman with bait on the hook. I was the fish; the fantasy setting and the author’s magnificent ability with words were the bait.

Mary Stewart was, of course, the sportswoman out to snag something in my soul. I was prepared to be entertained, but the story carried a surprising amount of weight, asking questions like What do we live for? Can humanity ever be enough? Merlin came into an understanding of his place in the world — not through romance or fantasy adventures as we so typically read —  but through internal revelation.

With his journey, I was invited into soulful reflection and some uncomfortable truths of my own. In the end, I decided Mary Stewart knew very well what she was doing. The stinker.

Maybe not a 'murder mystery' in the typical sense of Agatha Christie, but this is a delightful, cozy read, ideal for an afternoon snuggled before a blazing fire (wine and chocs to hand) or for lazing on a sunny beach (plus wine – maybe not the chocs). As someone living in a small Devonshire village I look forward to our annual summer show (hopefully without a corpse hidden anywhere!) I thoroughly enjoyed the rural background of this delightful little tale. Don't take the murder-to-solve element too seriously, instead, enjoy the lives of charming and quirky English Cotswolds’ characters, and the events that unfold around them in this, the first, of a highly enjoyable series. We need more entertaining cozy mystery novels like this series!

Pirates. Who can resist the romanticized, swashbuckling Golden Age of piracy? (I know I can’t – my own created fictional character is a pirate!) Perhaps the most famous pirates of all are Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack Rackham. James L. Nelson’s novel about their scurrilous lives is based on the few historical records that exist, and he weaves a highly credible tale about their dastardly seafaring deeds – and how they came to be pirates in the first place. The author himself has a talent for writing exciting adventures and his knowledge of sailing a tall ship is unsurpassed – he actually worked aboard a replica tall ship, so he knows his stuff from stem to stern. This is an adult read with adult content of sex and violence, but then, these characters were pirates...

As soon as I met her, I liked the main character, quick-witted, intelligent Alex, who found herself stranded in 1658 even though she is a woman of the 21st century. This is time travel where belief has to be suspended – easily, in this case – where the author combines two timelines into a credible and highly entertaining series of adventures for Alex and Matthew Graham, a 17th-century Scotsman.

Shades of Outlander? The time travel and the political events of the period yes – everything else, no. Miss Belfrage’s characters are very much her (and their!) own creation, her writing is snappy with excellent dialogue. Her historical detail is superb, while the plot itself is intriguing and complex and flows well through its twists and turns. This is the first in the series – a series that improves as it progresses like a fine, maturing wine. One of… show more.

While written in a similar vein as The Last Kingdom, Kristian has a knack for making his writing come to life in a very Anglo-Saxon epic poem kind of way. In this novel, we follow an orphan of sorts, Raven, as he joins a rapacious band of Norsemen embarking on a violent quest. Kristian is a relative newcomer compared to the others on this list, but he does not disappoint and will take the reader on a grand adventure.

Found in the British Library, where I would be quite happy to move in on a permanent basis if only they would let me.

I’ve read many excellent biographies of medieval women there, including Kimberley LoPrete’s Adela de Blois, Alison Weir’s Queens of the Conquest, Kari Maund’s Princess Nest of Wales, and Lois L. Honeycutt’s Matilda of Scotland. Clarkson’s biography is eminently readable.

In lucid and concise prose garnished with maps, genealogies, a good index, and bibliography, this book paints a fascinating picture of King Alfred’s daughter.

This is a book about much more than just the most famous of the Saxon kings, Alfred the Great. The narrative begins in 789 and runs to 955, and charts not only the ‘beginning’ of England, as we know it, but also the ‘end’ of the smaller kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. One of the more recent of my book recommendations, Max Adams simply thinks about Saxon England the way that I do, and he’s able to weave a narrative that’s conscious of both the narrative sources for the period and recent archaeological advances. I often pick up his books (he’s written two others about earlier Saxon England) to make use of his timelines and maps. He has a lightness of touch and flair that makes even the murkiest of topics, engaging and more importantly, comprehensible.

This is the second book in an exciting series. I loved the first book, which told the story of the fierce Mercian King Penda! The Sins of the Father focuses on the life of Penda’s more sensitive, less warlike son, Ethelred. Annie Whitehead (who is also a respected historian) brings vibrantly to life many of the people and places that I’m interested in, more from the point of view of the ancient Kingdom of Mercia, rather than Northumbria. Familiar characters appear and I find it so interesting to view them from a different angle. These books are not murder mysteries, but utterly fascinating historical novels, which vividly capture both the humanity and battles for power in the ancient kingdoms.

There absolutely has to be a book from Cornwell’s Saxon series in any list concerning the Viking Age.

Each book in the series is brilliant, but this one is my favorite. Uhtred of Bebbanburg is a brutal, unforgiving character and in this book he is truly put to the test. The characters are earthy and well-drawn, and the adventure is absorbing and unparalleled.

Bernard Cornwell is the master of the Historical Fiction war/adventure genre and his skills are brilliantly deployed in Lords of the North. 

Speaking of books, I love The Saxon Tales, or as you TV plebs will know it, The Last Kingdom, which is absurdly good. I love the TV show (on Netflix), but the books are next-level.

Uhtred, son of Uhtred, raised by Danes but Saxon by blood fights to regain his blood right and the home that was stolen from him. Cornwell writes the best battle scenes in all of literature, and these books are full of them. I loved them so much that I styled the fighting in my own books after Cornwell’s battle scenes in this series.