Toby Clements was inspired to write the Kingmaker series having first become obsessed by the Wars of the Roses after a school trip to Tewkesbury Abbey, on the steps of which the Lancastrian claim to the English throne was extinguished in a welter of blood in 1471. Since then he has read everything he can get his hands on and spent long weekends at re-enactment fairs. He has learned to use the longbow and how to fight with the poll axe, how to start a fire with a flint and steel and a shred of baked linen. He has even helped tan a piece of leather (a disgusting experience involving lots of urine and dog faeces). Little by little he became less interested in the dealings of the high and mighty, however colourful and amazing they might have been, and more fascinated by the common folk of the 15th Century: how they lived, loved, fought and died. How tough they were, how resourceful, resilient and clever. As much as anything this book is a hymn to them. He lives in London with his wife and three children. This is his second novel.

Toby Clements does it again with another powerhouse of a book: thrilling and literate, engaging, passionate, deeply moving and full of historical detail of the sort that fills me with awe for the fortitude of our ancestors and yet makes me so glad I live in the safety of the twenty-first century. This is going to be one of the stellar series of our generation, redefining that period of history that we think we know, and discover we really don’t. Bravo!

Toby Clements was inspired to write the Kingmaker series having first become obsessed by the Wars of the Roses after a school trip to Tewkesbury Abbey, on the steps of which the Lancastrian claim to the English throne was extinguished in a welter of blood in 1471. Since then he has read everything he can get his hands on and spent long weekends at re-enactment fairs. He has learned to use the longbow and how to fight with the poll axe, how to start a fire with a flint and steel and a shred of baked linen. He has even helped tan a piece of leather (a disgusting experience involving lots of urine and dog faeces). Little by little he became less interested in the dealings of the high and mighty, however colourful and amazing they might have been, and more fascinated by the common folk of the 15th Century: how they lived, loved, fought and died. How tough they were, how resourceful, resilient and clever. As much as anything this book is a hymn to them. He lives in London with his wife and three children. This is his second novel.

Toby Clements does it again with another powerhouse of a book: thrilling and literate, engaging, passionate, deeply moving and full of historical detail of the sort that fills me with awe for the fortitude of our ancestors and yet makes me so glad I live in the safety of the twenty-first century. This is going to be one of the stellar series of our generation, redefining that period of history that we think we know, and discover we really don’t. Bravo!