The New Murrey and Blue blog

Recently, it was revealed that twenty eminent Ricardians voted on their favourite fiction and non-fiction books. Here, we look at some of the fiction books and we’ll examine the non-fiction ones in a future post.

As you might expect, the number one Ricardian fiction book was Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, the book responsible for a large number of people becoming Ricardians. It’s on offer on kindle at the moment here: https://amzn.eu/d/03krjTWX

Second was Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour, a sweeping epic which is a long but riveting read and always a favourite with Ricardians. Here is a link to it in Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/05AMkNsH

Third was Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s wonderful book, We Speak No Treason.  It’s evocative of the mediaeval period, atmospheric and emotional  – you’ll need your tissues!

Here is the link: https://amzn.eu/d/0begCbuj

But I was amazed to find that two of my books were included in the list (one as author – Richard Liveth Yet, and one as editor and contributor – The Road Not Travelled), especially since they are self-published.

If you haven’t heard of them, Richard Liveth Yet is a trilogy, though each of them are also stand alone stories, and come under the alternative history category. They also involve time travel, so they are a kind of Back to the Future with Richard III.  The story started as the book I wanted to read, that answers the question ‘What if Richard had won the Battle of Bosworth?’ By chance, Richard travels forward in time to the 21st century and meets Rose who helps him plan out how to return to his own time and change history. In book two, Rose travels to the 15th century and experiences medieval times but has to return eventually, and book three deals with Richard going to the future to find Rose again.

Here is the link to book one: https://amzn.eu/d/040jUzbZ

Alternative history fascinates me, so the other book, The Road Not Travelled, also deals with that, being an anthology of alternative history stories by twenty different authors. Profits from this one go to Scoliosis Support and Research. (In 2023, Scoliosis Association UK, our original charity, and The British Scoliosis Research Foundation merged to become Scoliosis Support & Research). We have donated over £1000 so far. Here is the link: https://amzn.eu/d/04bAn5i6

There are a few dubious ones in there though (Amy Licence, Shakespeare).