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This week I would like to suggest British author Valerie Anand. Many years ago I started reading her Bridges Over Time series. This series, along with a few others, got me hooked on Historical Fiction. It is a saga that follows an English family through the years, as their fortunes rise and fall, beginning when they are poor serfs in the middle ages. There are six volumes:The Proud Villeins
The Ruthless Yeomen
Women of Ashdon
The Faithful Lovers
The Cherished Wives
The Dowerless Sisters
Really, lovely books. There are also seven other stand alone historical novels that were published before the Bridges Over Time series:
Gildenford
The Norman Pretender
The Disputed Crown
To a Native Shore
King of the Wood
Crown of Roses
West of Sunset
She is still writing, her latest historical novels are set in Exmoor, Somerset, in the west of England. The House of Lanyon and The House of Allerbrook are both available new. The rest may be out of print, but there should be used copies available (that's how I got most of mine).
Valerie Anand also writes an excellent historical mystery series, under the name Fiona Buckley, set at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. This series features the Queen's lady-in-waiting, and sometime spy, Ursula Blanchard. The first book, To Shield the Queen, plunges Ursula into the biggest scandal of the Queen's reign, when Robert Dudley's wife, Amy, fell down the stairs to her death.
To Shield the Queen
The Doublet Affair
Queen's Ransom
To Ruin a Queen
Queen of Ambition
A Pawn for a Queen
The Fugitive Queen
The Siren Queen
