Sharon Kay Penman (1945–2021)
Autor(a) de Here Be Dragons
About the Author
Sharon Kay Penman was born in New York City on August 13, 1945. She received a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Texas at Austin and a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers University School of Law. She worked as a tax lawyer before becoming a full-time writer. She wrote The Sunne in mostrar mais Splendour, which chronicled the life of Richard III, while she was a student and a tax lawyer. After finishing the manuscript, her only copy was stolen from her car. She eventually rewrote the book and it was published in 1982. Her other works include Here Be Dragons, The Reckoning, When Christ and His Saints Slept, The Queen's Man, Cruel as the Grave, Dragon's Lair, Prince of Darkness, Lionheart and A King's Ransom. She won the 2001 Career Achievement Award for Historical Mysteries from Romantic Times. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Image credit: © William Penman, Jr.
Séries
Obras por Sharon Kay Penman
A Queen in Exile 1 exemplar
The Sunne in Splendour, Part 1 of 3 1 exemplar
Justin de Quincy 1 exemplar
Associated Works
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome canónico
- Penman, Sharon Kay
- Data de nascimento
- 1945-08-13
- Data de falecimento
- 2021-01-22
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- VS
- Local de nascimento
- New York, New York, VS
- Local de falecimento
- Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA
- Causa da morte
- pneumonia
- Locais de residência
- New York, New York, USA
New Jersey, USA - Educação
- University of Texas, Austin (BA ∙ History)
Rutgers University (JD) - Ocupações
- lawyer
historical novelist - Agente
- Molly Friedrich (Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency)
Mic Cheetham (Anthony Sheil Associates, Ltd.)
Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425- Sharon Kay Penman was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey. She majored in history at the University of Texas at Austin, and received a law degree from Rutgers University School of Law. She worked as a tax lawyer before becoming a writer. While still a student, she started to research and write her first novel, The Sunne in Splendour (1982), a fictional account of the life of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III of England. However, after the only copy of her manuscript was stolen from her car, she was devastated and gave up writing for several years. Eventually she was inspired to begin again, and 12 years later, while practicing law at the same time, had produced the 936-page novel. In the early 1980s, she began publishing the "Welsh Trilogy" of historical novels set in medieval Wales. It was followed by the "Plantagenet series," novels about the life of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1996, she published the first in a series of medieval mystery novels, The Queen's Man. It was named a finalist for an Edgar Award for Best First Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America.
Membros
Discussions
Rest in Peace Sharon Kay Penman em Historical Fiction (Setembro 2021)
Chronological Sharon Kay Penman Books Challenge em Historical Fiction (Agosto 2021)
Sharon Kay Penman em Historical Fiction (Fevereiro 2017)
GROUP READ: Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman em 2013 Category Challenge (Novembro 2013)
GROUP READ: Time and Chance by Sharon Kay Penman em 2013 Category Challenge (Setembro 2013)
2013 GROUP READ Dicussion - When Christ and His Saints Slept em 2013 Category Challenge (Fevereiro 2013)
Críticas
This was an enjoyable light read, took a little while to get into it but once it got going I read it quite quickly.
I loved this, full of such rich historical detail. I need to track down the rest of the series now!
I really enjoyed this, it’s your typical historical murder mystery but written beautifully and with a compelling pace. Onto book 3!
Listas
Historical Fiction (10)
Five star books (1)
Prémios
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 21
- Also by
- 2
- Membros
- 17,285
- Popularidade
- #1,284
- Avaliação
- 4.2
- Críticas
- 488
- ISBN
- 181
- Línguas
- 4
- Marcado como favorito
- 185
- Acerca
- 4
- Pedras de toque
- 1,048
I enjoyed this book in parts, principally when the scenes developed naturally with some nice interaction between historical characters such as Henry, future King, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. And the book was educational as I certainly know more about the period than beforehand. I wasn't so keen on the huge chunk that revolved around the imaginary character Ranulf and his friends/relations and his strung out hopeless love affair. I can see the point of putting such a character in scenes to interact with the real historical characters, to give a third party onlooker with whom the reader can identify and who can perhaps help to convey key facts, but there were extended interludes based around this character's misadventures elsewhere. I felt that the section in Wales was put in to allow the author to display her research about medieval Welsh society. In an already very long book, Ranulf's interactions away from the historical events must have added at least 200 pages of padding.
I also wasn't keen on certain aspects of the book's structure. There was a repeated style of scene where characters are discussing the events of the day and then someone bursts in, either with a message or to announce the arrival of a messenger. This was repeated so often I came to expect it whenever people were sitting down having a discussion. It made for a certain staleness and sense of deja vu. There were also quite a few places where someone explains all about something or someone to another character in an extended infodump, quite often done between made up characters who only appear for that purpose.
I also appreciate that there were a lot of characters in the real history, and many had the same or similar names, but it did get quite confusing at times and I just couldn't remember who someone from among the minor characters was, especially if they had been out of the picture for a few chapters. The list of characters at the start of the book only lists the main ones plus Ranulf and his invented friends and relations.
These issues made it a bit of a struggle to get through the book although I did persevere as I did want to know what happened and found the character of the future Henry II attractive. Therefore my overall rating balances out at 3 stars.
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