True Crime: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon WinchesterHarperPerennial, 1998, 1999, 242 pgs. The late 1800s. An elusive Dr W. C. Minor sends in regular submissions to the team at Oxford University who are collating entries for the most ambitious record of the…

Nonfiction: To Catch a King by Charles Spencer

To Catch a King: Charles II’s Great Escape by Charles SpencerWilliam Collins/HarperCollinsPublishers, 2017, 314 pgs. With Charles I imprisoned and on trial, the Royalists lost the English Civil War. As Cromwell’s Protectorate rose to power, the new republic sought to hunt down the last remaining threats from the monarch’s side. One of the most sought…

Nonfiction: Killers of the King by Charles Spencer

Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles SpencerBloomsbury, 2014, 340 pgs. Killers of the King follows the rise and fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate; from the execution of the monarch, Charles I, to the arrival of Charles II, and the eventual dissolution of the republic. Through numerous turbulent decades…

The Big Read: The Once and Future King by T. H. White – Book Four: Incipit Liber Quartus ‘The Candle in the Wind’ & Book Five: Incipit Liber Quintus ‘The Book of Merlyn’ (Pt. 4 + End)

The Once and Future King by T. H. White – Incipit Liber Quartus: The Candle in the Wind (1940) Incipit Liber Quintus: The Book of Merlyn (posthumous pub. 1958).HarperVoyager, Kindle edition, 2015, 1940 & 1958, 208 & 137 pgs (of 864 pgs total, approx.) The land of Gramarye is thrown into confusion. The ageing King Arthur questions…

Recent Reads: The Muse by Jessie Burton

The Muse by Jessie BurtonPicador, 2016, Kindle edition, 448 pgs. –1936-Harold Schloss, Viennese art dealer, and his wife, Sarah, and daughter, Olive, have moved to Spain. Renting a house in the Andalusian countryside, Olive – bored and lonely – paints in secret. Her artwork is unique and modern, easily rivalling any of the male contemporaries…

Recent Reads: The Spear by James Herbert

The Spear by James HerbertPan Books, 1978, 1999, 312 pgs. Private investigator Steadman thought he had left his violent past behind him forever – until his ex-employers track him down. They request that he uncover the whereabouts of a missing Mossad operative who disappeared whilst investigating a powerful arms dealer. When one of Steadman’s closest…

Recent Reads: God and the King (William and Mary Book 3) by Marjorie Bowen

God and the King by Marjorie BowenThe Floating Press, 1911, 2013 (print); Kindle edition by HardPress Classic Book series, 2016 edition. James II has taken the throne in England upon the death of his elder brother, Charles II. His daughter, Mary, is now abroad in the Netherlands with her husband, William of Orange – a man James fears has…

Nonfiction: She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of England by Elizabeth Norton

She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of England by Elizabeth NortonThe History Press, 2008, 285 pgs. Some queens are remembered for their piety, their kindness, or their loyalty. Some became symbols to aspire to, to hold all other queens against, and to define what makes a queen be good and great. Some queens, however, are remembered…

Nonfiction: The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay

The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna KeayBloomsbury Publishing, 2016, 480 pgs. James, Duke of Monmouth. Aristocrat. Rake. Commander. Soldier. Adored. Despised. He was the illegitimate son of Charles II, and was abducted by his father as a child. Spending his teenage years in the fashionable and raucous court of Versailles, supported by Louis XIV,…

Nonfiction: Royal Renegades by Linda Porter

Royal Renegades: The Children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars by Linda Porter Macmillan, Pan Books, 2016, 432 pgs. The history of Charles I, the English Civil Wars, and his execution are well-known; as is the time when the Three Kingdoms’ no longer had a monarch, instead allowing for Parliamentarian rule through Oliver Cromwell.…