Definitely an author to put on your ‘To Be Read’ list!

Karen Maitland

Hi everyone!

I recently did a Bubble Book Club about historical fiction, and it fired up my love for Karen Maitland.

What a sublime author. I cannot even begin to tell you the research that must go into these novels. All the details from the periods are so authentic that you are truly transported back in time.

Her first novel ‘A Company of Liars’ is about 9 strangers, thrown together on their quest to run from the Black Death, in about 1348. The characters stick with you like glue and you soon realise that guessing the liar/villain in all her novels is a hard ask. So there is history and definitely an element of crime solving in all her novels, but also there is a twist of the supernatural. This twist does not detract from the rich history lesson or the story but enhance it. The belief systems/ folk lore that spanned these eras were often bizarre and very interesting. Maitland plays on these to give us settings and times that were as bloody as they were creepy.

She has written novels about the Spanish Inquisition, Pagan beliefs versus Christianity, the plague, Bad King John and more! I’ve read them all and suggest you start one today 😊