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Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow-and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling-and how their lives would play out from that point on. 
 
For Harry, this is that story at last. 
 
Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness-and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight. 
 
At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love. 
 
Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . . 
 
For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Spare

It was one of the images of the twentieth century: two boys, walking behind the coffin of their mother, Princess Diana. Billions wondered what the princes must be feeling - and how their lives would play out from that point on. 
 
For Harry, this is that story at last. 
 
Before then, Prince Harry was known as the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. But grief changed everything. 
 
At twenty-one, he joined the Army but was soon more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love. 
 
Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's romance and wedding. But in the face of sustained press intrusion, Harry saw no other way to protect his wife and children than to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try had been his mother. . . 
 
Written with raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is full of insight, revelation and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Andrew Gimson

THE NEWLY REVISED EDITION 
 
Gimson&rsquo;s Kings and Queens is the most entertaining and instructive book on the English monarchy you will ever read. 
 
For lovers of history, the experienced and the novice, the serious and the silly. 
 
Gimson&rsquo;s Kings and Queens whirls us through the lives of our monarchs &ndash; from 1066 and William the Conqueror right up to Queen Elizabeth II and the present-day &ndash; to tell a tale of bastardy, courage, conquest, brutality, vanity, vulgarity, corruption, anarchy, absenteeism, piety, nobility, divorce, execution, civil war, madness, magnificence, profligacy, frugality, philately, abdication, dutifulness, family breakdown and family recovery. 
 
Written in Andrew Gimson&rsquo;s inimitable style, and illustrated by Martin Rowson, Gimson&rsquo;s Kings and Queens is both a primer and a refresher for anyone who can't quite remember which were the good and bad Edwards or Henrys, or why so-and-so succeeded to the throne rather than his second cousin.

Gimson’s Kings and Queens

Brief Lives of the Forty Monarchs since 1066

Brian Hoey

The only daughter of Princess Anne and famously dubbed a 'rebel Royal', Zara Phillips has long been the subject of media interest. However, her considerable sporting success received little attention until she won gold at the 2006 equestrian World Championships. 
 
In this insightful biography, Brian Hoey looks beyond the public image to reveal the real Zara, from her parents' divorce and her mother's subsequent remarriage, to her relationships with other royals including Prince William and Prince Harry, her sense of style and love life, and her rise to the top of equestrian eventing. 
 
Zara's story is a fascinating tale of determination, the search for independence and the will to succeed on her own merit.

Zara Phillips

A Revealing Portrait of a Royal World Champion

Katie Nicholl

Katie Nicholl, Royal Correspondent for the Mail on Sunday, has been at the centre of royal reporting since she joined the newspaper in 2001. There is no one who is more intimately acquainted with the lives and loves of Princes William and Harry. Katie has spoken to a wealth of contacts close to William and Catherine Middleton and reveals how their love affair really started at St Andrews, the hurdles the pair overcame and the challenges they still face. 
 
Originally published to great acclaim in 2010 as William and Harry, Katie Nicholl has updated and added to her original account of the princes' lives and recounts the definitive story of William's royal romance with the young woman destined to become Queen Catherine.

The Making of a Royal Romance

Gyles Brandreth

This is the definitive account of one of the most extraordinary stories of our time. Gyles Brandreth, acclaimed biographer of the Queen and Prince Philip, presents a unique portrait of their son, Charles, Prince of Wales, and of the one 'non-negotiable' love of his life, Camilla Shand, now Duchess of Cornwall. 
 
What are Charles and Camilla really like? What is their heritage? What has made them the way they are? This is both a revealing portrait of two unusual individuals and a family saga like no other, told with unrivalled authority and insight - and humour - by a best-selling writer who has met all the key characters in the drama: Charles, Camilla, Diana, their children, their families and their friends.

Charles & Camilla

Leanda de Lisle

A myth-busting biography of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, which retells the dramatic story of the civil war from her perspective 
 
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE 
 
Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen, is the most reviled consort in British history. Condemned as the 'Popish brat of France' and a 'notorious whore', she remains in popular memory the woman who turned the king Catholic - so causing a civil war - and a cruel and bigoted mother. 
 
Leanda de Lisle unpicks these myths to reveal a very different queen. We meet a new bride who enjoyed annoying her uptight husband, who was a passionate advocate for the female voice in public affairs and who, when civil war came, proved crucial to Charles's campaign. The image of the Restoration queen as an irrelevant crone is replaced with Henrietta Maria as an influential 'phoenix queen'. It is time to look again at this despised queen and judge if she is not in fact one of our most remarkable. 
 
 
'Brilliantly written, mesmerising, superb scholarship and totally immersive... A total game changer' KATE WILLIAMS, author of Rival Queens 
 
'This is revisionist history at its absolute best' ANDREW ROBERTS author of Churchill 
 
'Beautifully written and endlessly fascinating' ALEXANDER LARMAN author of The Crown in Crisis 
 
'Popular history of the finest kind' RONALD HUTTON author of The Witch

Henrietta Maria

Conspirator, Warrior, and Phoenix Queen – the true story of Charles I’s wife

Conspirator, Warrior, Phoenix Queen

Virginia Rounding

'THE MOST ACCESSIBLE AND ENJOYABLE PORTRAIT YET.' DAILY MAIL 
______________________________________________________ 
 
Power, sex, and politics: the fascinating rule of one of Russia's most significant monarchs 
 
Catherine the Great ruled Russia from 1762 until 1796. Famous for the legends circulated by political rivals about her sexual rapacity, some were true - though not the infamous rumour of her death by stallion. However, a conservative Russian court was shocked by her use of her sexuality as a political tool, as well as the number and age of her lovers. 
 
Unhappily married to the Grand Duke Peter, a man who preferred to play with his toy soldiers in the bedroom, they failed to produce an heir, and Catherine turned her attentions to a certain Sergey Saltykov who fathered the future Tsar Paul I. Six months into the reign of Peter III, Catherine, supported by the Imperial Guard, staged a successful coup against her husband and became Empress. It was her ambition to transform a vast but semi-barbaric country with the cultural and political reforms of Enlightenment Europe. 
 
In this fascinating biography, Virginia Rounding reveals an extraordinary woman in all her complexity. 
______________________________________________________ 
 
'A great thumping triumph of a book.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
'Rounding shows that the reality is far more interesting than any of the fictions.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 
 
'An intimate study of Catherine's life' GUARDIAN 
 
'Enjoyable and perceptive study . . . Rounding has read widely, and writes history with a no-nonsense style and a respectful relish for the details that make the past come alive.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
'Rounding writes with enviable lucidity, and gives us the most accessible and enjoyable portrait yet.' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Written with vigour and intelligence enough to do justice to its prodigious subject.' SUNDAY TIMES

Catherine The Great

Love, Sex, and Power

Hugo Vickers

Harold Nicolson called her 'the greatest Queen since Cleopatra', while Cecil Beaton called her 'a marshmallow made on a welding machine'. Stephen Tennant said: 'She looked everything that she was not: gentle, gullible, tenderness mingled with dispassionate serenity, cool, well-bred, remote. Behind this veil she schemed and vacillated, hard as nails.' Who was she? 
 
The Queen Mother's story has not yet been properly told. This was partly due to her long life, and the difficulty that always exists when a biography of a living person is attempted, partly because she was a queen - and the real person gets hidden behind the perceived image - and partly because she is hard to pin down. 
 
From her privileged aristocratic childhood, to the Abdication and the problems with Diana - this book questions how she faced her challenges and crises, assesses her role, how powerful she was, and how she coped. This is a candid, personal portrait of one of Britain's most loved national treasures. 
 
Hugo Vickers, an acknowledged expert on the House of Windsor, has spent seventeen years researching this book, and observed the Queen Mother in public and private over a period of forty years.

Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

Alison Weir

Triumph and tragedy, love and loss, murder and malice in the lives of five fifteenth-century queens, from 'the queen of history writing' (Sunday Express) 
 
The fifteenth century was a turbulent age: the Hundred Years War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses dominated the lives of people both inside and out of the royal courts. 
 
Joan of Navarre, Katherine of Valois, Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Wydeville and Anne Neville were the queens who stood by England's sovereigns, caught up in wars that changed the course of their lives, and the course of history. 
 
They were also formidable women who defied the limitations of their times, often living out the brutal consequences of their determination. 
 
Alison Weir uncovers their stories in this final volume of her ground-breaking series on the queens of medieval England. Queens at War is a stunning culmination of research by a historian at the full extent of her powers and gripping account of five women on the throne. 
 
* 
PRAISE FOR ALISON WEIR: 
 
‘A meticulous scholar’ New York Times 
‘She is an excellent storyteller: descriptions are vivid and her knowledge of the sources is extensive’ Spectator 
‘Weir’s hugely popular history books are as gripping as novels’ The Times 
‘[Weir] writes in a pacy, vivid style, engaging the heart as well as the mind’ Independent 
‘Alison Weir has the rare gift of being able to bring history vividly to life’ Choice

Queens at War

England's Medieval Queens

Nevile Gwynne

Do you know your Kings and Queens of England by heart? Can you tell your Ethelred from your Ethelbert? Your Marcia from your Matilda? 
 
Well, passionate educator Mr Gwynne is back – and this time he is taking on the entirety of British history – so you will never be in the dark again. Within the pages of this little gem – bursting with our small island’s rich past – he teaches us the history of England through her remarkable monarchs. 
 
It is Mr Gwynne’s belief that a certain amount of what you might read in other history books may well be wrong. It is his aim to show you why. 
 
Concise, thorough and utterly fascinating, this is the perfect book to be enjoyed by young and old, to be read at a time when, for many, harking back to our rich past seems much more preferable than living in the dreary present. 
 
And when it comes to the benefits of education, Mr Gwynne is never wrong!

Gwynne's Kings and Queens

The Indispensable History of England and Her Monarchs

Estelle Paranque

'A story told with verve and passion' The Times, Book of the Week 
 
'An alternative and engaging biography...accessible and unpretentious' The Telegraph 
 
'A stunning portrayal of two of the most powerful women in European history' Tracy Borman 
 
'Exciting and compelling, packed full of tantalising details of diplomacy and court life, Paranque succeeds both in bringing history to life, but also in putting flesh on the bones of these two extraordinary women and rival queens' Kate Mosse 
 
'A smart and stylish portrait of two of Europe's most remarkable rulers, a compelling profile of female power and - that rarest of things - a truly original book about the Tudor period' Jessie Childs 
 
In sixteenth-century Europe, two women came to hold all the power, against all the odds. They were Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici. 
 
 One a Virgin Queen who ruled her kingdom alone, and the other a clandestine leader who used her children to shape the dynasties of Europe, much has been written about these iconic women. But nothing has been said of their complicated relationship: thirty years of friendship, competition and conflict that changed the face of Europe. 
 
 This is a story of two remarkable visionaries: a story of blood, fire and gold. It is also a tale of ceaseless calculation, of love and rivalry, of war and wisdom - and of female power in a male world. Shining new light on their legendary kingdoms Blood, Fire and Gold provides a new way of looking at two of history's most powerful women, and how they shaped each other as profoundly as they shaped the course of history. Drawing on their letters and brand new research, Estelle Paranque writes an entirely new chapter in the well-worn story of the sixteenth century.

Blood, Fire and Gold

The story of Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici

Livia Manera Sambuy

A lost princess and a vanished world: a remarkable true story that moves from the Punjab of the Raj to 1930s Paris and the Second World War 
 
‘Remarkable and compelling’ Edmund de Waal 
 
‘Thoroughly engaging’ Kamila Shamsie 
 
In a Mumbai museum in 2007, Livia Manera Sambuy encounters a photograph that will change her life forever. 
The caption claims that the Punjabi princess Amrit Kaur sold her jewels in occupied Paris to save Jewish lives, only to be arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp where she died within a year. 
 
For Livia, this marks the beginning of a compulsive search for the truth as she delves into the history of the British Raj, the diamonds and sapphires of the twentieth-century aristocracy, and the lives of extraordinary figures: bankers, jewellers, explorers and spies. 
 
‘An ambitious, absorbing work that peels back the layers of its enigmatic subject and digs deeply into the author's own emotional vicissitudes’ Jhumpa Lahiri 
 
‘A tantalizing true story . . . In Search of Amrit Kaur plunges into the glittery world of Indian royalty’ New York Times Book Review

In Search of Amrit Kaur

An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris

Katy Birchall

As Meghan Markle once said: 'With fame comes opportunity, but it also includes responsibility - to advocate and share, to focus less on the glass slipper and more on pushing through glass ceilings. And, if I'm lucky enough, to inspire.' 
 
Inspired by the Royal Wedding on 19 May, this beautiful collection of light-hearted stories celebrates what it takes to be a modern princess. Smart, strong, kind and brave, every princess here - whether they be fictional or real - is awesome. 
 
Including: Meghan, Ameera, Elizabeth II, Elsa, Leia, Moana, Tiana, Fiona, Haya, Lalla, Akishino, Maha, Diana, Catherine, Grace, Maxima, Rania AND princesses ahead of their time: Margaret, Elizabeth I, Pingyang, Hatshepsut, Nzinga and Seondeok. 
 
This book will make you smile and inspire you to make your own happy ending.

How to be a Princess

Real-Life Fairy Tales for Modern Heroines – No Fairy Godmothers Required

Full of passion and betrayal, murder and war, the first volume of an epic new series from bestselling historian Alison Weir, bringing five of England's medieval queens to life. 
 
A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 
 
Love, murder, war, betrayal 
 
This is the story of the five extraordinary queens who helped the Norman kings of England rule their dominions. Recognised as equal sharers in the royal authority, their story is packed with tragedy, high drama, even comedy. 
 
Heroines, villains, stateswomen, lovers 
 
Beginning with Matilda of Flanders, who supported William the Conqueror in his invasion of England in 1066, and culminating in the turbulent life of the Empress Maud, whoc claimed to be queen of England in her own right and fought a bitter war to the end, the five Norman queens are revealed as hugely influential figures and fascinating characters. 
 
In Alison Weir's hands, these pioneering women reclaim their rightful roles at the centre of English history.

Queens of the Conquest

The extraordinary women who changed the course of English history 1066 - 1167

Paul Burrell

The untold story behind one of the most sensational chapters in the history of the House of Windsor. Paul Burrell fought to clear his own name. Now he reveals new truths about Princess Diana &ndash; and presents for the first time as faithful an account of her thoughts as we can ever hope to read. He was the favourite footman who formed a unique relationship with the Queen. He was the butler who the Princess of Wales called &lsquo;my rock&rsquo; and &lsquo;the only man I can trust&rsquo;. He was accused of theft, then acquitted following the historic intervention of the monarch. He was the Princess&rsquo; most intimate confidante &ndash; and is the only person able to separate the myth from the truth of the Diana years. Now at last Paul Burrell cuts through the gossip and the lies and takes us closer to the complex heart of the Royal Family then ever before.

A Royal Duty

The poignant and remarkable untold story of the Princess of Wales

Jane Ridley

The prequel to The Crown: the first truly candid portrait of George V and Mary, the Queen's grandparents and creators of the modern monarchy 
 
Shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Historical Biography prize and the History Reclaimed Book of the Year prize 
 
The lasting reputation of George V is for dullness. However throughout his reign, the monarch navigated a constitutional crisis, the First World War, the fall of thirteen European monarchies and the rise of Bolshevism. The suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under his horse at the Derby, he refused asylum to his cousin the Tsar Nicholas II and he facilitated the first Labour government. 
 
How this supposedly limited man steered the Crown through so many perils is a gripping tale. With unprecedented access to the Royal archives, Jane Ridley has been able to reassess the many myths associated with this dramatic period for the first time. 
 
'Wonderful... Never a dull paragraph' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times 
 
'Magnificent... An evocative and touching portrait of a surprisingly impressive man' Philip Hensher, Spectator 
 
'A big, beautiful beast of a book. Fair, thorough and unexpectedly funny' Lucy Worsley

George V

Never a Dull Moment

Catherine Mayer

The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 
 
'Breathtaking' The Times 
 
'[The book that] made headlines around the world.' Independent 
 
The former Prince of Wales has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark. 
 
The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his 'dearest wife': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a serious figure and a joker. Life at court turns out to be full of hidden dangers and unexpected comedy. 
 
Now, updated and revised with a new preface and two new chapters - covering details of Harry and Meghan's exit and its implications, the cash-for-honours scandal, Prince Andrew, and more - this significant study reveals a monarchy threatened and a man in sight of happiness yet still driven by anguish and a remarkable belief system, a charitable entrepreneur, activist, agitator and avatar of the Establishment who just as often tilts against it. 
 
Based on multiple interviews with his friends and courtiers, palace insiders and critics, and rare access to Charles himself, before his kingship, this biography explores his philanthropy and his compulsive interventionism, his faith, his significant impact on politics and the philosophy that means when he seeks harmony he sometimes creates controversy. 
 
Gripping, at times astonishing, often laugh-out-loud, this is a royal biography unlike any other. 
 
'A must-read ... this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King's world-view' GQ 
 
'A sustained piece of higher journalism' Independent

Charles: The Heart of a King

Lucinda Hawksley

‘Satisfyingly replete with eye-popping stories’ Observer 
 
 What was so dangerous about Queen Victoria’s artistic tempestuous sixth child, Princess Louise? 
 
When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded f from public view for years. 
 
 Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother’s controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers – especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the ‘masculine’ art of sculpture and go to art college – and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school. 
 
 The rumours of Louise’s colourful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice’s handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family to marry a commoner since the sixteenth century. 
 
 Spirited and lively, The Mystery of Princess Louise is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance.

The Mystery of Princess Louise

Queen Victoria's Rebellious Daughter

Harold Nicolson called her 'the greatest Queen since Cleopatra', while Cecil Beaton called her 'a marshmallow made on a welding machine'. Stephen Tennant said: 'She looked everything that she was not: gentle, gullible, tenderness mingled with dispassionate serenity, cool, well-bred, remote. Behind this veil she schemed and vacillated, hard as nails.' Who was she? 
The Queen Mother's story has not yet been properly told. This was partly due to her long life, and the difficulty that always exists when a biography of a living person is attempted, partly because she was a queen - and the real person gets hidden behind the perceived image - and partly because she is hard to pin down. 
From her privileged aristocratic childhood, to the abdication and the problems with Diana - this book questions how she faced her challenges and crises, assess her role, how powerful she was, and how she coped. This is a candid, personal portrait of one of Britain's most loved national treasures. 
Hugo Vickers, an acknowledged expert on the House of Windsor, has spent seventeen years researching this book, and observed the Queen Mother in public and private over a period of forty years.

Elizabeth, The Queen Mother

Thomas Penn

Winner of THE HW FISHER BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 
 
'He were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles' Sir Francis Bacon 
 
In his remarkable debut, Penn vividly recreates the dark and turbulent reign of Henry VII. He traces the transformation of a young, vulnerable boy, Prince Henry, into the aggressive teenager who would become Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon, his future queen. And at the book's heart is the tragic, magnetic figure of Henry VII - controlling, paranoid, avaricious, with a Machiavellian charm and will to power.

Winter King

The Dawn of Tudor England

Sally Bedell Smith

Drawing on her extensive access to the Royal Family's inner circle, Sally Bedell Smith delivers unprecedented insights into Prince Charles, a man who possesses a fiercely independent spirit, and yet has spent his life in waiting for the ultimate role. 
 
Beginning with his lonely childhood, Smith details his intellectual quests, his entrepreneurial pursuits, and his love affairs - from the tragedy of his marriage to Diana to his eventual reunion with Camilla, as well as his relationship with the next generation of royals: Will, Kate, Harry, and his beloved grandchildren. 
 
As this sweeping biography shows, Prince Charles is more complicated and compelling than we knew until now.

Charles

Tracy Borman

‘History as it should be written’ Alison Weir, bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series 
 
A groundbreaking and fascinating biography of England's most famous queen, viewed through the women who influenced her life. 
 
Elizabeth I is often portrayed as a ruthless 'man's woman', who derided her own sex – ‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman' – and loved to flirt with the young men at her court. Yet she was born into a world of women and it is her relationships with these women that provide the most fascinating insight into the character of this remarkable monarch. 
 
 As a child Elizabeth was raised by her mother, governesses and stepmothers, while as an adult she was clothed, bathed and watched by her ladies of the bedchamber and her maids of honour. With them she was jealous, spiteful and cruel, as well as loyal, kind and protective. Among her family it was her female relations who had the greatest influence on her life: from her sister Mary, who distrusted and later imprisoned her, to her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, who posed a constant and dangerous threat to her crown for almost thirty years. 
 
 It was these women – and many more – who brought out the best – and worst – in Elizabeth and reveal the woman behind the carefully cultivated image of the Virgin Queen.

Elizabeth's Women

The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen

'Stunning... Weir has brought those five queens to life like never before. I just raced through it - it has all the drama and suspense of a novel' Tracy Borman 
 
Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, queen seductresses, learned queens, queens in battle - the Plantagenet queens broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill. 
 
 Beginning with the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine whose marriage to Henry II sows the seeds for some of the most destructive family conflicts in history and ending with Eleanor of Castile, the grasping but beloved wife of Edward I, Alison Weir's ground-breaking history of the queens of medieval England provides an enthralling new perspective on a dramatic period of high romance and sometimes low politics, with determined women at its heart.

Queens of the Crusades

Eleanor of Aquitaine and her Successors

Granted special access by Queen Elizabeth II to her parents' letters and diaries and those of their close friends and family, Sally Bedell Smith brings the love story of this iconic royal couple to life. Deeply researched and revealing, this book shows how a devoted marriage helped the King and Queen meet the challenges of World War II, lead a nation, solidify the public's faith in the monarchy, and raise their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. 
 
Sally Bedell Smith gives us an inside view of the lives, struggles, hopes, and triumphs of King George VI and Elizabeth during a dramatic time in history.

George VI and Elizabeth

The Marriage That Shaped the Monarchy

Elizabeth the Queen begins as the young Elizabeth ascends the throne in the wake of her sister Mary's disastrous reign - both a woman and a queen, Elizabeth's story is an extraordinary phenomenon in a patriarchal age. 
 
From Elizabeth's intriguing, long-standing affair with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to her dealings - sometimes comical, sometimes poignant - with her many suitors, her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots, and her bizarre relationship with the Earl of Essex, thirty years her junior, here, in rich, vivid and colourful detail, Alison Weir helps us comes as close as we shall ever get to knowing what Elizabeth I was like as a person. 
 
'Excellent...intricate and absorbing...An elegant, shrewd and wonderfully vivacious book.' The Times

Elizabeth, the Queen

An intriguing deep dive into Queen Elizabeth I’s life as a woman and a monarch

Tina Brown

'Impeccable sources, historical heft and canny insights served up with a zingy wit. There are many royal biographers, but few as good as this. She turns gossip into the first draft of history.' TELEGRAPH 
_________________________________ 
'Never again', became Queen Elizabeth II's mantra shortly after Diana's death. More specifically, there could never be 'another Diana' - a member of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone, and posed an existential threat to the British monarchy. The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the traumatic years when Diana's blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. 
 
Tina Brown shows the Queen's stoic resolve as she coped with the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother and her partner for seven decades, Prince Philip, and triumphed in her Jubilee years even as the family dramas raged around her. She explores Prince Charles's determination to make Camilla his queen, the tension between William and Harry, the ascendance of Kate Middleton, the disgraced Prince Andrew, and Harry and Meghan's stunning decision to 'step back' as senior royals. Despite the fragile monarchy's best efforts, 'never again' seems fast approaching. 
 
Praise for The Palace Papers: 
'Clever, well-informed and disgustingly entertaining' THE TIMES 
'Eye-poppingly revealing' TELEGRAPH 
'Her prose has the swoosh of an enjoyably OTT ballgown' FINANCIAL TIMES 
'The most explosive royal book of the year' THE SUN 
'Scholarly and scandalous' INDEPENDENT

The Palace Papers

Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil

Frank McLynn

Anyone who has seen The Lion in Winter will remember the vicious, compelling world of the Plantagenets and readers of the romance of Robin Hood will be familiar with the typecasting of Good King Richard, defending Christendom in the Holy Land, and Bad King John who usurps the kingdom in his absence. But do these popular stereotypes correspond with reality? 
 
In this sweeping narrative, celebrated historian Frank McLynn turns the tables on modern revisionist historians and shows these larger-than-life characters as they really were - crusading, fighting vicious wars in France, negotiating with the papacy, engaging in ruthless dynastic intrigue, often against each other: in Richard's case, even holding the kingdom together when fighting in the Holy Land; and in John's, losing Normandy, catastrophically agonising the barons over Magna Carta and losing the Crown Jewels in the Wash.

Lionheart and Lackland

King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest

Anthony McCarten

From the prize-winning screenwriter of The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour, The Two Popes is a fascinating, revealing and gripping tale of two very different men whose destinies converge with each other - they both live in the Vatican - and the wider world. 
 
On 28 February 2013, a 600-year-old tradition was shattered: the conservative Pope Benedict XVI made a startling announcement. He would resign. Reeling from the news, the College of Cardinals rushed to Rome to congregate in the Sistine Chapel to pick his successor. Their unlikely choice? Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,200 years, a one time tango club bouncer, a passionate football fan and a man with the common touch. 
 
How did these two men become two of the most powerful people on Earth? 
What's it like to be the Pope? 
What does the future hold for the Catholic Church and its 1 billion followers? 
 
The Two Popes is a dual biography that masterfully combines these two popes' lives into one gripping narrative. From Benedict and Francis' experiences of war in their homelands - when they were still Joseph and Jorge - and the sexual abuse scandal that continues to rock the Church to its foundations, to the intrigue and the occasional comedy of life in the Vatican, The Pope glitters with the darker and the lighter details of life inside one of the world's most opaque but significant institutions.

The Two Popes

Official Tie-in to Major New Film Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins

Described by Christopher Marlowe as the 'She-Wolf of France', Isabella was one of the most notorious femme fatales in history. According to popular legend, her angry ghost can be glimpsed among church ruins, clutching the beating heart of her murdered husband. But how did Isabella aquire this reputation? 
 
Born in 1292 she married Edward II of England but was constantly humiliated by his relationships with male favourites and she lived adulterously with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. Had it not been for her unfaithfulness, history might have immortalised her as a liberator- the saviour who unshackled England from a weak and vicious monarch. 
 
Dramatic and startling this first full-length biography of Isabella will change the way we think of her and her world forever.

Isabella

She-Wolf of France, Queen of England

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