For those who don't know her work, she was a prolific writer of historical fiction in the 70's. She's very accurate about what she writes, careful to get her historical facts straight and I like her story lines. I'm currently devouring "The Lords of Vaumartin", which takes place in 1363, immediately before and after the French rout at Crecy. Pretty heart pounding description of the battle, too.

None of this is brain sugery, but after slogging through scholarly stuff all the time I like to read some "lighter" material.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I really like historical theme but am not into trashy-romance stuff. It doesn't have to be solely medievaI, as I ADORE Edith Wharton and Jane Austen.

Have you tried Sharon Kay Penman ? Her novel "The Sunne in Splendour" is a fantastic read - if anything so frivolous will turn somebody into a dedicated Yorkist, it's this book - it's better researched than some textbooks, and it's so good Jenn goes back to read it from time to time (and she otherwise never re-reads books). She moped for a month for Richard III after reading it - it's a two or three hanky novel.

Also, she wrote a trilogy based on Llewellyn the great, Prince John, Llewellyn the last, and Simon de Montfort - the Simon de Montfort one is a multiple hankey novel. "Here be Dragons" is the first book I think. More recently she has written "When Christ and his Saints Slept" - which is about the Anarchy of the reign of Stephen - another great novel. Her most recent work is a series of detective/spy novels set around Elanor of Aquitaine - the first in the series of two so far is "The Queens Man".

I've read them all (and you didn't think I did any light reading). The great thing is most of her work is better researched than many popular history books,. but the stories flow, have lots of sympathetic characters, and they just tend to suck you in till your done reading them.

I haven't read the other ones but some are on the shelf - Jeff had them when we got married- so I'll have to try them out.

Except for the mysteries- I hate mysteries...

Thanks for the suggestion!

Like others above I'd rather it'd not get too romantic and not be a "mistery"-type novel. Ideally it'd be set in the second half of the fifteenth century (anywhere in Europe). As that's perhaps making it too hard let's include fun-to-read non-fiction and fiction written in period.

I see that Paul Murray Kendall has several books about Yorkist characters and daily life, but they're a bit old. Are they still worth reading or are they somewhat outdated?

Any ideas will be much appreciated!

Have you read Martha Rofheart's "Fortune Made His Sword"? It's about Henry V. I read it back when it came out in the '70s and really liked it.

I haven't read any of Sandra Worth's Rose of York trilogy, but she won a best historical fiction of 2008 award for one of them. Anybody read any of her stuff?

Best Regards,

Paul

I have marked those to check them out at some point.

I found Sandra Worth's website, too: http://www.sandraworth.com/books.htm