A Thank you To Sharon K. Penman

September 2017

A Thank You to Sharon K. Penman
by Annie Whitehead

I was introduced to Sharon Penman's writing in a general recommendation from my sister, when I first moved to Cumbria and was living in a cottage by myself. In the days before mobile phones, Sky TV and the internet, books were not just a pleasure, they were an essential!

Two of Penman's books were on the list, and a random choice found me picking The Sunne in Splendour to read first. This book was first published in 1982, although my copy dates from 1986, the year of my move.

photo of my own copy
Despite having studied history at 'A' Level and then for my degree, the only time I had been taught anything about the Wars of the Roses was as an introduction to the Tudors, in order to give some contextual perspective to the syllabus. This book was a revelation. I was taken into another world - inhabited by people I thought I knew: Edward IV, Warwick the Kingmaker, Cecily Neville, and Richard of Gloucester himself. It was lush, and it was massive. What a brick of a book - 882 pages in paperback - and I was to keep the company of these people for a long time.

Some of my preconceptions were confirmed, and some were challenged. Although my views on Richard III remain ambivalent, Penman drew a real and believable portrait of a man who must have occupied one of the most tricky positions in royal history.

I wanted more.

Next on the list came Here Be Dragons, the first in her Welsh Trilogy. I knew nothing about this period, or indeed the area. The landscape, literal and metaphorical, was foreign to me. Again I was drawn into a different world, this time that of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth and his English bride, Joanna, natural daughter of King John. I learned so much, about Welsh history, about this formidable woman, and Penman brilliantly placed her in a quandary: how does one reconcile one's feelings for one's father, when as a king he acts less than honourably?

photo of my own copy
The second volume in the trilogy takes us back into England, and Falls the Shadow focuses on the life of Simon de Montfort and his wife, the king's sister. Again, family loyalties lie at the heart of the drama as they are put under an almost intolerable strain. The history is vivid, the battle scenes horrific, the love scenes tender. So well-written is the character of Simon, that years later, visiting the site of the battle of Evesham, I found tears pricking my eyes.

photo of my own copy
The final volume, The Reckoning, takes us back to Wales. Here, Llewelyn's grandson, also Llewelyn, agrees to marry the de Montforts' daughter, Ellen. By all accounts, this became a marriage of true love, but it was hard won. The enemy here is Edward I, and he kept the couple apart for many years. Llewelyn is not simply battling Edward's determination to stamp his authority on Wales, he is also fighting his own siblings. One scene, involving Ellen at the palace at Abergwyngregyn, had me sobbing. To know that this is all based on real events only adds to the poignancy.

photo of my own copy
By coincidence, shortly after I'd finished this series, we had a family holiday in North Wales. It was a 'pin in a map' decision - a guest house that could provide a family room for two adults and three children, plus a double room for my parents - and that booking found us driving through all the places mentioned in these novels. My love affair with the area had begun, and has never ended. So much so that I visit, on average, twice a year, and have even learned to speak the language (badly.)

I next read When Christ and His Saints Slept. The title is taken from a quote referring to the civil war between Stephen and Matilda (called Maude in the novel.) Again, it is the perfect blend of history, and dramatisation. Time and again, I found myself marvelling at Maude's fortitude, only to read afterwards that all the incidents were based on true events. Penman does not falsely empower her medieval women; she describes them, tells the stories of their lives, while keeping them firmly in their historical context. And they are more powerful because of it. The male characters are by turns heroic, and humanly flawed.

photo of my own copy
Nowhere, perhaps, is this more true of her writing than in her next book, about Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II. Again, this is a period about which I am less familiar, never having studied it officially. Amazon says that Time and Chance is the second of her Eleanor Trilogy, When Christ and His Saints Slept being the first, although I read the former as a stand-alone novel. Here we get to know Eleanor, but in this volume the focus is on her husband Henry's dealings with Thomas Becket. To have this episode played out between two men, once friends, with conflicting ambitions and points of view, rather than simply two names from the history books, brought depth and detail to one of the most famous arguments in history.


I confess, because of a gap in publication, I did not read the last of the trilogy, The Devil's Brood, (although she wrote two more novels after this, expanding the trilogy to tell the story of Lionheart) nor have I read her Justin de Quincy Mysteries, which feature fictional characters. I can't imagine that they are any less brilliantly conceived and delivered, though.

Reading the novels of Sharon Penman had a profound and lasting effect on me. It increased my knowledge of medieval periods scarcely taught at schools and universities. It brought me closer to the people who made that history, by introducing them to me as real people, rooted firmly in their own time, but nevertheless experiencing universal emotions. And it nourished a desire, burgeoning since my undergraduate days, to do the same service to the characters who populated the British Isles before 1066. In a word, and for all these reasons, Sharon Penman's novels are inspiring.

Annie Whitehead, author of novels and stories set in Ango-Saxon Mercia

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Sharon Penman is of Anglo-Irish  heritage and lives in America. She has degrees in history and in law and was a practising lawyer until the publication of The Sunne in Splendour, her first novel.
Find her Amazon author page HERE



21 comments:

  1. Thank you, Annie - Sharon is certainly a fabulous writer! I was 'introduced' to her in a rather strange way! A Facebook friend of mine happens to be the president (?) of tyhe Sharon Kay Penman Appreciation Society - in Australia! They are most active in promoting Sharon's books and I was 'virtually bullied' into reading Sunne. Glad I was, it's a fantastic book. I progressed to the Welsh trilogy and, yes, I was in tears too! Swiftly followed by Time and Chance and Devil's Brood. Saints is on my TBR pile!!! Thoroughly recommended to anyone who hasn't read any of her books....

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    1. Sharon is a remarkable woman - I personally owe my entire writing career to her!

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    2. Her books are wonderful - in fact I'm itching now to re-read them all!

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    3. I'll raise my hand with you ladies. I would not be writing without her. She often tries to minimize her influence on me, saying I would have found my way into it eventually without her, but I strongly disagree (and tell her so!)

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    4. She said similar to me Stephanie - without her input I would never have had the confidence to take that 'next step'. And Sharon can take the blame (*laugh*) for this review site as well! Because she helped me take that first step up a very long (and occasionally wobbly) ladder my way of saying 'thank you' is to help, where and how I can, new promising authors. Hence this review blog!

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    5. My approach as well, Helen. She often calls us a dying breed! LOL! So I figure, as do you, that the best I can do to repay that kindness is pass it on, wherever and however I can.

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  2. Annie, this is a fine testament to Sharon's writing prowess and the joy her books bring to many lives. I, too, fell in love with Sunne in Splendour and spent all the next years impatiently waiting for more from this formidable writer. I don't know what kind of a lawyer Sharon was but she is certainly my writing hero and I'm glad she turned to writing full time. I know as I write my own historicals that her stamp is indelibly etched in my brain and, hopefully, touches my own writing. What a tour de force she is! A couple of years ago at the Historical Novel Society conference in Denver I had about 15 minutes of private conversation with her. It was a fluke but I never forget it. She is gracious, funny and absolutely kind. Yay, Sharon Kay Penman! Thanks for writing about her, Annie.

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    1. Thank you Elaine - totally agree with all you've said!

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    2. Thanks Elaine - I'm glad you liked the article. I so wanted to do justice to Sharon's writing and to her influence on so many other writers.

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  3. Sharon is a wonderful author - one of the queens of the genre. I have every book she has written and they are now starting to fall apart. Soon, I'll have to do what I have done with Helen's, lol. Buy replacement copies.
    They are books to read more than once, to enjoy them again, to fall in love with the characters again, and to learn from them - both historically, and as a writer. My favourite type of homework.

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  4. One of my favourite historicals of all time is Here Be Dragons. The characters have been imprinted in my memory.

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    1. Oh, didn't we all fall head-over-heels in love with Llewelyn!

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    2. Simon is my literary boyfriend. :-) Visiting Evesham 4 years ago was a very emotional experience for me, I do admit.

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    3. Stephanie - I also felt very emotional visiting the battle site. This was not a period of medieval history with which I was overly familiar, but having read the novel, I was able to picture the battle scene as I stood there.

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  5. A quick update - Sharon attempted to respond, but a wretched cyber-monster searching for nice responses to devour ate it - we will try again to post something....

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  6. Unfortunately Sharon did not manage to persuade Blogger to post her reply, so I'm doing it for her.

    She says:

    "Annie, thank you so much for this lovely blog about my books. It means so much to me. As a fellow writer, I know you will agree with me that reader feedback is worth its weight in gold to us. And when praise comes from another writer, that is like hitting the lottery. Your timing could not have been better, for it has been a rather bumpy year for me; I’ve had to share my home with a very obnoxious Deadline Dragon, who hogs the couch, sheds scales like dandruff, and keeps eyeing my dog as if he is wondering if she’d taste like chicken. So I was definitely in need of cheering up and your blog most definitely did that!

    I appreciate the kind words, too, from all who commented on your blog. Helen and Stephanie are friends of long-standing as well as talented writers in their own right, and I highly recommend their books. [H.H. thank you Sharon!] I still remember the jolt I got when I began to read Helen’s first book in her trilogy about King Arthur, a “Wow, this is really good!” moment. And of course, thousands of readers would soon be agreeing with me, recognizing that an impressive new talent had arrived upon the literary scene. I tease Stephanie that she has invented a genre all her own—her characters’ kingdom cannot be found on any map, just in Stephanie’s head. They are classified as fantasy, but with no supernatural elements, no ghosts, vampires, or monsters, and they are rooted in such a gritty medieval reality that my readers feel right at home there.

    Annie, I confess that I’ve not yet read any of your books, but you hooked my interest with the single word “Mercia.” I am a huge fan of Bernard Cornwell’s books, even did a blog titled “Why I love Bernard Cornwell.” As someone who has spilled an ocean of blood in her books, I am in awe of his battle scenes. I am also utterly mesmerized by his Saxon series and his charismatic, snarky, unique main character, Uhtred, who is intimately connected—in every sense of the word—to the Lady of Mercia, Aethelflaed. I immediately zipped over to Amazon, hoping that your Mercia and Cornwell’s Mercia overlapped, and I was delighted to discover that they did. Would you recommend that I start with this novel, To Be A Queen? I am unable at present to read for pure pleasure; see first paragraph about Deadline Dragon. But once I evict the troublesome beast, I hope to make up for lost time, and Mercia seems like a perfect place to start. Are all of your novels set in Anglo-saxon England? Are you tempted to stray into other eras?

    Well, it is easy to see how I churn out 800 page books, isn’t it? Since my earlier attempts to post a comment ended in them being banished into a black hole of cyberspace, I am going to take Helen up on her generous offer to post it for me. Thanks again, Annie. Social media and the Internet are such a blessing, both for writers and readers!"
    S.K.P.

    Thank you Sharon - for your wonderful answer and lovely, kind words. I do say, quite often, that if it hadn't been for your support, enthusiasm and encouragement I would not have had the courage to turn my dream of becoming an author into a reality, but just to say 'thank you' does not seem adequate enough! H.H

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  7. Thank you, dear Sharon. So many people owe you so much. And you do it with such a sweet spirit which just endears you all the more. You have so much to teach so many of us!

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  8. Sharon is the reason I went to a Welsh university. 'Here Be Dragons' was the foundation of my subsequent Welsh history studies.

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    1. Wow, what a lovely compliment! Medieval Welsh history is so fascinating, isn't it? When I moved to Wales to research Here be Dragons, it only took about a fortnight for Llywelyn to steal the book right out from under King John's nose. Now I shall see if I can get this posted; wish me luck.

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  9. I, too am a HUGE fan of Sharon's books. The first being When Christ and his Saints Slept. That book lead me on a quest to learn all I could about the Plantagenant dynasty. It was also through Sharon that I found and became friends with the lovely Helen Hollick....I hate to say how many years ago! You both are and will remain two of my favorite authors of all time!

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