The EACH historical fiction project

Britain 1500 - 1750

Shakespeare's Apprentice, by Veronica Bennett (Walker, 2008) NEW TITLE
This love story is set in Elizabeth’s reign at the time when the Earl of Essex was heading for his final fall and execution. Told from the perspective of Sam, an apprentice actor in Shakespeare’s company, it gives a glimpse of London life, the workings of the theatre and something of the political tightrope that all in high places walked. It is well worth a place in the school library and may prove fertile ground for a collaboration between history and English in the new curriculum.

By Royal Command, by Mary Hooper (Bloomsbury, 2008) NEW TITLE
This is a sequel to At the House of the Magician. The heroine, Lucy Walden, works as nursery maid to Dr Dee, mathematician and court astrologer. This allows the author to bring in a range of characters including Elizabeth I herself and it also allows Lucy to visit the Court. What emerges is a convincing picture of life in the period, although at times the sheer weight of detail slows the narrative. The plot is engaging, there are two intrigues for Lucy to take a hand in as a well as the beginning of a love story that looks set to carry on in a later instalment.
Bearkeeper, by Josh Lacey (Marion Lloyd Books, 2008) NEW TITLE
The story of Pip, a 12 year old boy newly arrived in Elizabethan London and looking for his father and for revenge. The story is lively with such characters as William Shakespeare and a bear named Miranda populating a convincing city. Diane Samuels, reviewing the book in the Guardian, describes it as “a well told story with a strong sense of time and place”. But the regular intrusion of the narrator’s voice, filling the reader in on the history, is an unnecessary device which may at best cause some pupils to start skipping and at worst to stop reading altogether, which would be a pity as it is a good story.

Red Hugh, by Deborah Lisson, (O'Brien Press)
The extraordinary true story of Red Hugh O’Donnell - kidnap, gaol, dungeons and escape. Ireland in 1587 was a tough place. The old Irish clans struggled desperately to hold on to their lands. With the Spanish Armada threatening her in the background, the English queen, Elizabeth I, set out to subdue them. A few weeks before his fifteenth birthday, Red Hugh was captured and taken to Dublin Castle - held as hostage to ensure the good behaviour of his father, chief of the powerful O'Donnell clan of Donegal. After several years, one freezing winter’s night the chance of escape seemed to come at last.

The Little Drummer Boy, by Michael Mullen, (Poolbeg Press)
The planters’ story is told in this novel about the Battle of the Boyne. There is a balance between Williamite and Jacobite worlds but the little Williamite drummer boy Jimmy Wright and the colourful fifer Sam Gault are the characters who stay in the mind after the horrors of battle are over.

Forged in the Fire, by Ann Turnbull, (Walker, 2006)
This is a love story set in plague-struck London. The sequel to No Shame, No Fear, Ann Turnbull's novel about 17th-century Quakers and their persecution. It opens with the heroine, Susanna, in Shropshire, getting ready for her wedding to her lover Will, who's
been working in London. But plague has arrived in the capital and is spreading. The story is narrated by the alternating voices of the lovers who experience the plague and the fire. Some excellent characters and description make this an ideal resouce for writing historical fiction with Year 8 pupils.

That Rebellious Towne, by Frances Usher (Cambridge, 1998)
The story of a family divided by the English Civil War and finding themselves fighting each other during the siege of Lyme Regis.