Happy New Year! I wanted to end the year by listing (in no particular order) some of my favorite reads of 2011. Most of these weren’t books that appeared in 2011, just books I read in 2011.
Nonfiction:
My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry That Led to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Nora Titone
The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell by John Schofield
Antony and Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy
Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Steers Jr.
Fiction:
Jane Seymour by Frances Clark
Rivals in the Tudor Court by D. L. Bogdan
The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller
The Secret Diary of a Princess by Melanie Clegg
And here are some of the books I’m looking forward to in 2012. (Yes, the list is pretty Tudor-heavy. So shoot me.)
Nonfiction:
The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc by Nancy Goldstone
Bessie Blount: The King’s Mistress by Elizabeth Norton
Jane Seymour by Kelly Hart
The Tudors: History of a Dynasty by David Loades
The Plantagenets by Dan Jones
Thomas Wyatt by Susan Brigden
Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and His Renaissance Ambassador by Catherine Fletcher
Heretic Queen: Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion by Susan Ronald
Wicked Women of Tudor England: Queens, Aristocrats, Commoners by Retha Warnicke
Fiction:
At the Mercy of the Queen by Anne Barnhill
At the King’s Pleasure by Kate Emerson
The Sister Queens by Sophe Perinot
A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir
Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones
The Sumerton Women by D.L. Bogdan
The Secret Keeper by Sandra Byrd
(Need I say I’m looking forward to my own book, Her Highness, the Traitor?)
Anyway, I hope it’s a great 2012 for all of you!
I am very much looking forward to your book! 🙂
Thanks, Robin!
My non fiction list would have to include The Stolen Crown and The Queen of Last Hopes Susan. They are both well researched and tell a thoughtful story that held my attention all the way through so I too look forward to your new book. I’ve also enjoyed reading The Bruce Trilogy by Nigel Tranter, all the Marshal novels of Elizabeth Chadwick and A Heart for Milton by Trudy Brasure.
Thanks, Philippa! Glad to see I’m in such good company!
Thanks, Philippa for listing my story as one of your favorites! I’m honored. I own the Nigel Tranter series, but I haven’t delved in yet. I’m too busy writing another North and South story…
I really struggled to write a best of list this year. Once again, only your ‘Queen of Last Hopes’ is the only work of fiction to make it on the list. I didn’t like ‘Rivals at the Tudor court’. I’m looking forward to your new novel! I’m also looking forward to Loades’ new book and wondering whether Starkey’s 2nd Henry VIII bio will make it out this year. I just posted on my blog that I’m giving ‘Bessie Blount’ a wide berth.
As for Retha Warnicke, I’ve never recovered from her book on Anne Boleyn a few years back!
Thanks, Anjere, for including me on your list! I know I should be wary of the Bessie Blount book, but I’m a hopeless Tudor-holic. As for Warnicke, she has written a journal article on the women I mentioned in my list, so I assume the book will be an expanded version of the article, which was pretty decent, at least as far as Anne Stanhope went.
Really into kate sedley and elizabeth peters.