Although presented in a fictional format this is the real story of the Kings of England. Some of them reigned for many years, others had their reins cut short by illness, others because a rival for the Crown decided to have them murdered. Obviously being a King is not always the easy job that some commoners might think!
As Mel Brooks famously had a French King say: "It's good to be the King!" But in this book we learn that being a King (or a Queen, for that matter) had certain hazards, too.
This book is the first part of a new trilogy that will bring a new light upon the Vikings, the Normans, the Plantagenets, the Lancasters, the Yorks and the Tudors.
They were powerful, often brutal. The story of the Kings and Queens of England is shocking, heart wrenching, horrifying and, sometimes, funny, but perhaps not in ways that one might expect. Is that funny peculiar or funny ha ha? You can be the judge of that after you have read this stunning book.
Learn how their lives as princes and princesses shaped and moulded them for the roles in life that would be thrust upon them, then, sometimes, equally capriciously, it seems, snatched from them. Banishment if they were lucky, or the assassin's knife, sword or poison, if they weren't quite so fortunate. Or there was always the executioner's block and axe for when an example was to be made of them and their murder required some form of apparent legal propriety with which to bamboozle the citizenry and general populace.
The stories within this book are based on factual evidence where it is available and, when factual evidence is a little thin on the ground, helped along by well-researched and intelligent conjecture.
Read of the ruthlessness of the most bloodthirsty Viking, Ragnar Lodbrok. But read what happened when he met Northumbria's King Ella. But read on the learn of the dreaded fate that his vengeful sons meted out upon poor King Ella.
This book will be an ideal Christmas gift for the history buff or the lover of a good story, because as well as being a very skilful researcher, Trisha Hughes is an absolutely cracking storyteller!
It's published by the Book Guild at £8.99.
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