Medieval Women Historical Fiction

A history of peasants in the Middle Ages, the story takes the listener into the life of Marion, the carpenter's wife, and her extended family as they struggle to survive through hardship, featuring a year in their lives at the mercy of the weather and the Lord of the Manor. Existing without soap, paper or glass and only with the most basic of tools, we learn how they survive starvation, sickness, fire and natural disaster in their home on the edge of the Weald.

Lizanne Balmaine has spent years honing her skills at arms, determined she will never again be at the mercy of any man. When she comes face to face with the one who stole her future, she seizes the opportunity to exact revenge. Soon he is her prisoner, at her mercy. But something is different about him, something that makes her question her purpose. Is it possible a man can be so changed? More, can she right the wrong that could lay ruin to her family?

In the fair autumn of Our Lord's grace 1431, the nuns of England's St. Frideswide's prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast.... And her niece, the angelic Thomasine.

A romance thread through a world of war, fantasy fused with fiction, Normandy, 1216: Lady Gabrielle is captured at a French convent and taken to an English castle—a prize for warlord Michael Marston. Her lover, Montague of Rouen, plots a daring rescue, joining forces with English barons about to overthrow King John. Marston steals Gabrielle’s heart with a powerful spell cast by a witch named Minerva. But when England drifts into civil war and Montague attacks, Gabrielle is forced to choose. With whom will she spend eternity: Michael Marston or Montague? A romance thread through a world ...

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

Imagine falling head over heels for a guy who's literally from another time. Daisy's world turns upside down when she meets Callan, a medieval highlander who finds himself tossed through time to end up in modern-day Boston. During a spontaneous road trip, sparks ignite, and Daisy realizes she's finally found the ideal guy. The only problem? This hot Scot swears he's from the 14th century and is determined to find his way back. As Daisy helps Callan navigate the modern world, she can't help but wonder if their love can stand the test of time. Talk about the ultimate long-distance relationship.

1412. France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, becoming an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries.

This is the story of Joan de Geneville, wife to one of England's most infamous traitors: Roger Mortimer. After the death of her father in 1292, Joan becomes one of the greatest English heiresses of her generation. In a time when women are subservient, she is raised by her mother to command. Educated by her tutors, she becomes a formidable woman in her own right. When Joan is married her husband's lust for power knows no bounds. She is forced to choose between her duty to her King and her loyalty to her husband.

The year is 1501. Europe’s fate rests in the hands of two monarchs at loggerheads. ◆ FINALIST, 2022 Chanticleer International Book Awards for a Fiction Series Anne of Brittany meticulously orchestrates the perfect match for her only child by Louis XII, King of France. Her daughter will become the most powerful woman in Europe by marrying the future Holy Roman Emperor. But when Louis abandons her wishes in favor of having their daughter marry his successor, Anne soon finds herself locked in a political struggle with the fate of Europe hanging between them. Things only get worse when ...

England, 1364: When married off at aged twelve to an elderly farmer, brazen redheaded Eleanor quickly realizes it won’t matter what she says or does, God is not on her side—or any poor woman’s for that matter. But then again, Eleanor was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars, making her both a lover and a fighter.

Separate countries to rule. One heart to share. Will duty or love prevail? ◆ FIRST PLACE WINNER - 2022 CHAUCER Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction ◆ WINNER of the Highly Recommended award from The Historical Fiction Company ◆ Royalty ◆ Power ◆ Politics ◆ Love ◆ Struggle The year is 1508. Louis XII, King of France, wants to stamp France’s footprint upon Italy. Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, and ruler of neighboring realm Brittany, wants to produce a son and heir for Louis and to save the independence of Brittany from France. Louise of Savoy, the mother of the ...

Another adventurous, historical, magical romance from the RITA-nominated author of eighteen award-winning romances She can read every mind . . . except his Gifted with faery blood, Cairenn is blessed and cursed with the ability to read minds, until a naked, half-dead Highland warrior washes up on the shore of her remote island. Challenged by the wall between them, Cairenn nurses him back to life as she tries to pierce his thoughts without succumbing to his charm. For only a fool would fall in love with a man whose world she cannot inhabit, and whose heart she cannot know.... "Lisa Ann Verge...

To escape an unthinkable arrangement, Rowe Beasly accompanies her mother to the dark and gloomy Castle Ravendale, a fortress beset by a long history of tragedies. One night while exploring, she meets the heir, the last remaining descendant to the great family of Rothdales. A disfigured lord who steals her heart from the moment they meet. But trying to get him to come into the light will test her strength and things she holds most dear. Emotionally scarred by the weight of his family's curse, Adaire Rothdale, lives his life in darkness away from the world. His hopes and dreams curdling each ...

Noble Aislinn grieves as the Iron Wolf and his minions storm through her beloved Darkenwald. And she burns with malice for the handsome Norman savage who would enslave her. . .even as she aches to know the rapture of the conqueror's kiss.

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her.

Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions - art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge - Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna's greatest fear comes true - she is left without a patron. But months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage.

Red-haired, wild and full of strong opinions, Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard thinks her marriage to Viscount Aimery is the highest honour to which she can aspire. But then she meets his liege lord, William, Duke of Aquitaine. William the Troubadour, a former Crusader, whose court is full of music, merriment and bawdiness. Everything Dangereuse craves. Dangereuse and William embark on a secret affair--and soon he abducts her from her husband's castle and carries her off to Poitiers, where he installs her in the Maubergeon, a tower built especially for her within his palace. With William's ...

At the height of the Middle Ages in the 14th century, King Edward III of England is determined to use any means necessary to expand his power and gain control of England's bitter rival, France. His own son, Edward, prince of Wales, is far from immune from his political plans. And when Joan of Kent, now free from exile, sees her chance for revenge, she takes it. A calculated plot to scandalize the royal family for revenge for her father's downfall and execution soon turns into the most surprising thing: love.

Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a historical novel like no other, one that immerses the listener in the dailiness of history, rather than history as the given sequence of events that, in time, it comes to seem. Time ebbs and flows and characters come and go in this novel, set in the era of the Black Death, about a Benedictine convent of no great note. The nuns do their chores, seek to maintain and improve the fabric of their house and chapel, and struggle with each other and with themselves.

"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.