Book picks similar to
Fortune Made His Sword by Martha Rofheart


historical-fiction
plantagenets
fiction
england

The White Queen of Middleham


Lesley J. Nickell - 1978
     As she moves abruptly from castle to castle, from England to France, with Warwick’s changing fortunes in the turbulent Wars of the Roses, Anne is a pawn in the dangerous games of political intrigue that she struggles to understand. The third son of the ambitious Duke of York, later King Richard III, is a hero in the eyes of the shy and bewildered Anne, and the key to her understanding of the great events happening around her. Their love, almost wrecked by the feud of York and Lancaster, culminates in great happiness and the last Plantagenet reign in England. The White Queen of Middleham is the first book in the Sprigs of Broom series, following the lives of Yorkist Plantagenet off-spring including "The Princes in the Tower" and Perkin Warbeck.

The Plague Tales


Ann Benson - 1997
    It turned neighbor against neighbor, the civilized into the savage, and the living into the dead. Now, in a spellbinding novel of adventure and science, romance and terror, two eras are joined by a single trace of microscopic bacterium—the invisible seeds of a new bubonic plague.In the year 1348, a disgraced Spanish physician crosses a landscape of horrors to Avignon, France. There, he will be sent on an impossible mission to England, to save the royal family from the Black Death....Nearly seven hundred years later, a woman scientist digs up a clod of earth in London. In a world where medicine is tightly controlled, she will unearth a terror lying dormant for centuries.From the primitive cures of the Middle Ages to the biological police state of our near future, The Plague Tales is a thrilling race against time and mass destruction. For in 2005, humankind's last hope for survival can come only from one place: out of a dark and tortured past.

Secrets of the Tudor Court


D.L. Bogdan - 2010
    Everything Anne touches seems to turn to gold, and Mary is certain Anne will one day become Queen. But Mary has also seen the King's fickle nature and how easily he discards those who were once close to him. . . Discovering that she is a pawn in a carefully orchestrated plot devised by her father, the duke of Norfolk, Mary dare not disobey him. Yet despite all of her efforts to please him, she too falls prey to his cold wrath. Not until she becomes betrothed to Harry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and son to King Henry VIII, does Mary find the love and approval she's been seeking. But just when Mary believes she is finally free of her father, the tides turn. Now Mary must learn to play her part well in a dangerous chess game that could change her life--and the course of history.

Sir Nigel


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1906
    Written in 1906, it is a fore-runner to Doyle's earlier novel The White Company, and describes the early life of that book's hero Sir Nigel Loring in the service of King Edward III at the start of the Hundred Years' War.Dame History is so austere a lady that if one has been so ill-advised as to take a liberty with her one should hasten to make amends by repentance and confession. Events have been transposed to the extent of some few months in this narrative in order to preserve the continuity and evenness of the story. . . . -- Arthur Conan Doyle"Undershaw," November 30, 1905

Isabella: Braveheart of France


Colin Falconer - 2013
    Now she has learned to rebel.12 year old Isabella, a French princess marries the King of England - only to discover he has a terrible secret. Ten long years later she is in utter despair - does she submit to a lifetime of solitude and a spiritual death - or seize her destiny and take the throne of England for herself?Isabella is just twelve years old when she marries Edward II of England. For the young princess it is love at first sight - but Edward has a terrible secret that threatens to tear their marriage - and England apart.Who is Piers Gaveston - and why is his presence in the king’s court about to plunge England into civil war?The young queen believes in the love songs of the troubadours and her own exalted destiny - but she finds reality very different. As she grows to a woman in the deadly maelstrom of Edward’s court, she must decide between her husband, her children, even her life - and one breath-taking gamble that will change the course of history.This is the story of Isabella, the only woman ever to invade England - and win.In the tradition of Philippa Gregory and Elizabeth Chadwick, ISABELLA is thoroughly researched and fast paced, the little known story of the one invasion the English never talk about.

The Other Daughter


Lauren Willig - 2015
    Grief-stricken, she returns to the small town in England where she was raised to clear out the cottage...and finds a cutting from a London society magazine, with a photograph of her supposedly deceased father dated all of three month before. He's an earl, respected and influential, and he is standing with another daughter-his legitimate daughter. Which makes Rachel...not legitimate. Everything she thought she knew about herself and her past-even her very name-is a lie.Still reeling from the death of her mother, and furious at this betrayal, Rachel sets herself up in London under a new identity. There she insinuates herself into the party-going crowd of Bright Young Things, with a steely determination to unveil her father's perfidy and bring his-and her half-sister's-charmed world crashing down. Very soon, however, Rachel faces two unexpected snags: she finds she genuinely likes her half-sister, Olivia, whose situation isn't as simple it appears; and she might just be falling for her sister's fiancé...From Lauren Willig, author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Ashford Affair, comes The Other Daughter, a page-turner full of deceit, passion, and revenge.

Last of the Breed


Louis L'Amour - 1986
    It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors, overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of the icy frontier—and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux.

Honor Bound


Brenda Novak - 2011
    Jeannette Boucher, a young French beauty from a family left penniless by the revolution, must marry against her will to save them all from ruin. But almost immediately after the vows are spoken, she learns that her old English husband is impotent—and in his desire for an heir, he plans to compromise her in the worst way. Determined to escape such a fate, she stows away on one of His Majesty’s frigates. But a woman alone is in constant danger. To Lieutenant Treynor, honor means everything...Born a bastard to a wayward marquise, Lieutenant Crawford Treynor was given to a poor farmer to raise and was maltreated until he ran away to join the Royal Navy. Treynor is determined to prove he’s as good as any other man and rise to captain his own frigate. But once he finds Jeannette aboard The Tempest he must decide whether to return her to the man he knows would abuse her—or risk everything, even his life, to keep her safe.'

Dear Heart, How Like You This?: The Cost of Love. (The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn Book 1)


Wendy J. Dunn - 2002
    Tom had secretly loved Anne his entire life. Told he is not highly born enough to pursue her, he learns to hide his feelings, especially after Anne catches the eye of Henry VIII.Despite his deepening disquiet about Anne’s growing relationship with the king, Tom remains at Anne’s side as one of her staunchest friends and supporters. Then Anne takes her place as the king’s second consort, and the unthinkable happens.Tom watches helplessly as the woman he loves and his closest friends go on trial for their lives...Grieving for Anne and his friends, Tom remembers Anne’s tumultuous journey to become Henry’s queen.What is the cost of love?Winner of 2003 Glyph Award for Publishing Excellence.

The Relic Master


Christopher Buckley - 2015
    Dismas is a relic hunter: one who procures “authentic” religious relics for wealthy and influential clients. His two most important patrons are Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony and soon-to-be Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz. While Frederick is drawn to the recent writing of Martin Luther, Albrecht pursues the financial and political benefits of religion and seeks to buy a cardinalship through the selling of indulgences. When Albrecht’s ambitions increase his demands for grander and more marketable relics, Dismas and his artist friend Dürer conspire to manufacture a shroud to sell to the unsuspecting noble. Unfortunately Dürer’s reckless pride exposes Albrecht’s newly acquired shroud as a fake, so Albrecht puts Dismas and Dürer in the custody of four loutish mercenaries and sends them all to steal Christ’s burial cloth (the Shroud of Chambéry), Europe’s most celebrated relic.On their journey to Savoy where the Shroud will be displayed, they battle a lustful count and are joined by a beautiful female apothecary. It is only when they reach their destination that they realize they are not alone in their intentions to acquire a relic of dubious legitimacy. Filled with fascinating details about art, religion, politics and science; Vatican intrigue; and Buckley’s signature wit, The Relic Master is a delightfully rich and intelligent comic adventure.

The Season


Sarah MacLean - 2009
    Not the best makings for an aristocratic lady in Regency London. Yet her mother still dreams of marrying Alex off to someone safe, respectable, and wealthy. But between ball gown fittings, dances, and dinner parties, Alex, along with her two best friends, Ella and Vivi, manages to get herself into what may be her biggest scrape yet. When the Earl of Blackmoor is mysteriously killed, Alex decides to help his son, the brooding and devilishly handsome Gavin, uncover the truth. But will Alex's heart be stolen in the process? In an adventure brimming with espionage, murder, and other clandestine affairs, who could possibly have time to worry about finding a husband? Romance abounds as this year's season begins!

The Imp of Eye


Kristin Gleeson - 2015
    While the storm clouds of the Wars of the Roses gather in fifteenth century London, Barnabas, a streetwise thirteen year-old orphan, dreams of sailing away to foreign countries. His mistress, Margery Jourdemayne, the Witch of Eye, and his guardian, CanonThomas Southwell, plot to use his clairvoyant talents to further their ambitions. Vain and ambitious Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, turns to the Witch of Eye to conceive a child to secure her position as the wife of the heir to the throne, but her husband’s enemies are determined to use her actions to bring about his downfall. Can this young imp, Barnabas, steer a safe path through the dangerous web of intrigue and suspicion that surrounds him? Will his ‘sight’ save him from burning in the flames of a witch’s pyre? And will Eleanor conceive a child, or will her follies prove her undoing?Rich with historical detail and suspense, this novel captures the imagination. "Fast-paced and moving, ‘The Imp of Eye’ is the memorable story of real events told in the distinctive voice of a unique and loveable character." – Karen Charlton, author of The Detective Lavender Mysteries"A jewel of a story, set among the royal courts and the dark alleys of medieval London, where intrigue, betrayal and witchcraft are woven into a poisoned web to trap the innocent. The characters are so compelling that I was struggling to breathe as the net tightened around them. This is story-telling at its best."- Karen Maitland, author of 'Company of Liars'

Wounds of Honour


Anthony Riches - 2009
    The plan is to take a new name, serve in an obscure regiment on Hadrian's Wall and lie low until he can hope for justice. Then a rebel army sweeps down from the wastes north of the Wall, and Marcus has to prove he's hard enough to lead a century in the front line of a brutal, violent war.

The Pale Assassin


Patricia Elliott - 2009
    Set during the French Revolution, this novel about a teen aristocrat who must question the justice of her own wealth while facing the cataclysmic divisions of her society will captivate readers as secrets come out, sympathies shift, and every choice can change or end a life.

Stormbird


Conn Iggulden - 2013
    His poor health and frailty of mind render him a weakling king -Henry depends on his closest men, Spymaster Derry Brewer and William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, to run his kingdom.Yet there are those, such as the Plantagenet Richard, Duke of York, who believe England must be led by a strong king if she is to survive. With England's territories in France under threat, and rumours of revolt at home, fears grow that Henry and his advisers will see the country slide into ruin. With a secret deal struck for Henry to marry a young French noblewoman, Margaret of Anjou, those fears become all too real.As storm clouds gather over England, King Henry and his supporters find themselves besieged abroad and at home. Who, or what can save the kingdom before it is too late?