Blood and Roses: One Family's Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses, (Paperback)

from Medievalgirl

Read for an assignment with a deadline, so skimmed/skipped a fair amount but read quite a bit.Generally a good work on about the lives and struggles of the Self-made Paston family who rose from the ranks of peasantry during turbulent era of the Wars of the Roses. 'The Paston letters' from which m...

from billiecat

An excellent book that takes you out of the Shakespearian drama of Kings and Queens and puts you in the shoes of the people who did the actual living and dying in the period. While reading it, I couldn't help but wonder what our thoughts and words will look like to historians five hundred years h...

from ladyaraminta

A very interesting read, a good insight into what 'ordinary' people did during the wars of the roses - ok so they weren't working class, but an interesting book all the same

from JBD1

A dense but readable history of the Paston family during the Wars of the Roses, made possible thanks to the survival of the family's large archive of correspondence. Castor uses the Pastons as a focal point for the broader history of the period in English history, mostly successfully. It all gets...

from Roarer

An excellent read. At times it's bewildering, as indeed were the Wars of the Roses. It is wonderful to look through this window into the past to see how one family negotiated an uncertain path, the pivotal roles the women played, the early years more like unremitting gang warfare than we normally...