Two of my favorite blogs — Sarah Johnson’s Reading the Past and Julianne Douglas’s Writing the Renaissance — were recently awarded the Excellent Blog Award by other bloggers, and in turn passed the award on to me. Congratulations and thank you to both ladies!

I recently participated in this blog meme by naming 10 blogs for the award, so it’s probably too soon for me to do that again. But you really should check out Sarah and Julianne’s blogs. They both focus on historical fiction, and they’re both truly excellent.

From the Writer of Queens blog, here’s an interview with Sandra Gulland, author of the new novel Mistress of the Sun, which is about Louise de la Vallière, mistress of France’s King Louis XIV.

Here’s a quick look at two historical novels I’ve read recently.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: It took me approximately forever to read this very long novel about the building of a cathedral in 12th century England. It has two well-motivated central characters: Philip, a humble prior who struggles against all obstacles to build the cathedral, and an evil earl’s son, William Hamleigh, who goes to great lengths to try to thwart Philip’s plans.

The historical setting in this book is well-drawn, especially the important role played by religion in the lives of most of the characters. Philip is devout, as you might expect, but the villainous William Hamleigh also shares the religious beliefs of the time, and his fear of priests and eternal damnation helps to drive the plot.

Ken Follett is famous for his suspense novels. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed the battle scenes in this book even though military details usually bore me. Overall, Pillars of the Earth is an entertaining historical novel, and I intend to read the sequel, World Without End.

Here’s Ken Follett’s official website.

Shogun by James Clavell: If you’re old enough, you might remember the 1980 TV mini-series based on this book, starring Richard Chamberlain. The story takes place in the 1600s, when an English ship’s pilot, Blackthorne, is shipwrecked in Japan and is forced to quickly adapt to a culture very different from his own. Meanwhile, he becomes a pawn in a political game played by Japanese feudal leaders on the brink of civil war.

The story held my interest. The historical details were interesting, and so was the cultural clash between the English and Japanese characters — and later, between Blackthorne and his own shipmates, who start to seem barbaric to Blackthorne as he becomes assimilated into Japanese ways.

Late in the book, the writer stops focusing on Blackthorne and switches his attention to the powerful and wily lord Toranaga, whose apparent goal (although he denies it) is to become ruler of Japan.

However, the story ends before Toranaga’s military campaign starts. The fate of many of the characters, including Toranaga, is left open. I found this disappointing, and in particular I would have preferred a better resolution to Blackthorne’s storyline.

Still, it’s a good book and I recommend it to patient readers. (I say “patient” because the book is more than one thousand pages long.) James Clavell died in 1994, so he doesn’t have an official website as far as I know, but here’s his Wikipedia entry.

Today I planned to post mini-reviews of three historical novels I’ve read recently. But as it turned out, I had so much to say about one of those books that it deserves its own post!

That book is Mistress of the Revolution by Catherine Delors. The main character, Gabrielle, is an aristocratic young French woman who falls into poverty and survives by becoming the mistress of a nobleman. Later, during the French Revolution, she is the mistress of a Revolutionary Tribunal judge. The story is told as a memoir written by Gabrielle when she is middle-aged.

Catherine Delors has a clean and graceful writing style that is a pleasure to read. She comes up with plausible ways to bring Gabrielle into contact with real historical figures and events, and provides a glimpse at the prejudices of the nobility and how the revolution crept up on them. The characters are complex and seem to have genuine 18th-century attitudes. Most of them seem like real people, not stereotypes.

I liked the way Delors presents the relationships between men and women. As the mistress of a wealthy and controlling man, Gabrielle leads a comfortable but dependent life, and the writer doesn’t sugar-coat the drawbacks of being a kept woman. Gabrielle’s relationship with her older brother is also complicated and interesting.

As a narrator, Gabrielle is sometimes surprisingly matter-of-fact. At times I wanted to be told more about her thoughts and feelings, especially her reaction to the revolution. We know that she supports its ideals, but she doesn’t say much about that or share how she feels about the violent collapse of the world she’s always known. However, Gabrielle’s calm approach works very well in the book’s most horrific scenes, where the plain details speak for themselves.

I felt I learned a lot about the French Revolution from this book, but the history didn’t overwhelm the story. Gabrielle is a likeable and believable narrator. I was sorry when the book ended, because I wanted to find out how Gabrielle’s son reacted to reading her memoir! That should give you an idea how engrossing this book is. I recommend it.

Here’s Catherine Delors’ official site. Her next novel, tentatively titled “For the King,” is due to be published next year. I’m looking forward to it.

This post on Catherine Delors’ very entertaining blog led me to two interesting posts about historical fiction book covers on writer Julianne Douglas’s Writing the Renaissance blog:

Knowing a book by its cover
Dream covers

Personally, I hate the “headless woman” cover craze. You can read my earlier comments on the subject here:
Perkin Warbeck’s chin

I like to see portraits or old paintings on book covers, and it annoys me to see them cut off in weird places, or with the faces (usually female) unnecessarily obscured.

As Catherine Delors mentions in her post, Sheramy from the blog Van Gogh’s Chair commented on Julianne Douglas’s original post, “The point of much historical fiction is to give faces and voices to women of the past, and then the covers take their faces away.” Exactly!

For example, the cover of Sena Jeter Naslund’s novel Abundance, which is about Marie Antoinette:

This illustration doesn’t say “French court” or “Marie Antoinette” to me. It says “anonymous woman holding ugly fan at strange angle.”

What a wasted opportunity, when the cover could have looked like this:

Now, that says Marie Antoinette to me, probably because it IS Marie Antoinette (public domain image from Wikimedia).

I would love to see that on the cover of a book because, as I said before, I like looking at historical portraits. And a portrait isn’t a portrait without a face.

So please, publishers, bring back the faces. You’ll sell more books that way — at least when I’m the one buying the books.

(P.S. I took the title of this post from a C.S. Lewis novel that doesn’t have anything to do with book covers — but it’s a good book.)

From author Susan Higginbotham’s website, an article about novelist Jean Plaidy: The queen of historical fiction

Some of Jean Plaidy’s novels have recently been reissued and are available at Amazon.com.

Plaidy (also known as Eleanor Hibbert, Victoria Holt, and Philippa Carr) is largely responsible for the existence of the Royalty.nu site and this blog — her novels, along with those of Norah Lofts, helped inspire my interest in royal history.

Genghis: Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden is currently available from Amazon.com. The sequel, Genghis: Lords of the Bow, will be published in March.

I’m a big fan of historical fiction, so I thought I’d share my list of favorite historical novels read in 2007. These books weren’t published in 2007 — it’s just that I finally got around to reading them last year!

In no particular order:

Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell. Four sisters meet the young composer, but who will marry him?

The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. Saga about a poor Victorian woman who starts her own tea business.

The Goldsmith’s Wife by Jean Plaidy. Old novel about Jane Shore, mistress of England’s King Edward IV. I hope this one eventually makes it back into print.

The Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis. A 15th century princess of Naples, Sancha of Aragon, marries into the notorious Borgia family.

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Deservedly popular page-turner about Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s sister (and rival for the love of Henry VIII).

I’m probably forgetting several other historical novels that I enjoyed in 2007. Maybe this year I should keep a list.

And, while I’m at it, here are my least favorite historical novels read in 2007:

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon. Fifth book in her Outlander series. I liked the earlier books, but what a snooze this one was. I couldn’t finish it.

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. A 15th century Italian girl dreams of becoming an artist. I found this book both depressing and predictable, with storylines that went nowhere. (If you’re fond of modern literary fiction, you might like the book more than I did.)

If you share my interest in historical fiction (and/or royalty), why not join the World of Royalty Network? I’ve created a group there for fans of historical fiction. Any setting, any era, royal or non-royal — you can discuss it all there! (And authors are welcome to join.)

From Carla Nayland’s blog, here’s a good review of Alison Weir’s novel Innocent Traitor, about the life of England’s “nine-day queen,” Lady Jane Grey.

(I haven’t read this book, and I probably won’t because I rarely like fiction written in the present tense. It’s so distracting and pretentious.)

‘Mad’ Spanish queen took over author’s life

Linda Carlino’s novel That Other Juana is available from Amazon.

Look here for other books about Queen Joanna the Mad.

Help writer Nan Hawthorn build her “exhaustive list of all historical novels set in Dark Ages or Medieval England!” (Thank you to Nan for sending this link.)

From historical fiction writer Susan Higginbotham’s blog:
Her royal cleav– er, destiny

I’m almost finished reading Catilina’s Riddle by Steven Saylor, a mystery set in ancient Rome. I tend not to like historical mysteries because I usually find them too contrived, but this one is very good once you get into it. I want to find out what happens next to the protagonist, Gordianus the Finder, and his family, so I’ll have to read the other books in the series.

According to the author’s biography in the back of the book, the series is called Roma Sub Rosa. But there’s little other information in the book about this series. I’d like to read the books in order, but which comes first? Where in the series does Catilina’s Riddle fall?

Unfortunately, the author’s website is currently down. And I can’t find the answer on Amazon, either. The publisher should have numbered these books!

Finally I found a cached copy of the author’s site on Yahoo, with a list of the books in chronological order. I thought I might as well post it here in case someone else is looking for it:

1. Roman Blood. Gordianus the Finder is summoned to the house of Cicero. The charge is patricide; the motive, a son’s greed.

2. The House of the Vestals. A book of short stories that take place in the time gap between Roman Blood and Arms of Nemesis.

3. Arms of Nemesis. An estate overseer is murdered by two slaves who have probably run off to join the Spartacan slave revolt. Gordianus must find them within five days, or 39 other slaves will die in their place.

4. Catilina’s Riddle. Gordianus gets swept up in the epochal Catiline conspiracy. This is the book I’ve been reading. I’ve been enjoying it because of the interesting, complex relationship between Gordianus and his sons.

5. The Venus Throw. Two strange visitors to Rome — an Egyptian ambassador and a eunuch priest — seek Gordianus’s help.

6. A Murder on the Appian Way. It’s 52 B.C.: an evil time for Rome. Gordianus must quell public violence by solving a murder mystery.

7. Rubicon. As Caesar marches on Rome and panic erupts in the city, Gordianus discovers, in his own home, the body of Pompey’s favorite cousin.

8. Last Seen in Massilia. Gordianus’s beloved son has disappeared, branded as a traitor to Caesar and apparently dead.

9. A Mist of Prophecies. During the Roman Civil War, as the forces of Pompey and Julius Caesar fight a series of battles, Gordianus investigates the murder of a beautiful young seeress.

10. The Judgement of Caesar. As Pompey plots a reckless stand on the banks of the Nile, Gordianus finds himself at the heart of a series of treacherous and history-altering events.

Coincidentally, someone searching for “Steven Saylor on HBO series Rome” found my blog earlier today. If that person comes back: Check Yahoo’s cache of the author’s site. At the moment, it’s there.

***An additional note: I should have checked Wikipedia! Now I see that it has a list of all the books in this series, including one I missed: A Gladiator Dies Only Once, which according to Amazon is a book of short stories set early in Gordianus’s career. (I won’t add it to the list above because I don’t know exactly where it fits chronologically.)