The Heretic: A Novel

"It’s based on the life of the Anne Askew, who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1546, and is about how ordinary people suffered quite genuinely for their faith. The detail in the book makes you feel like you are really there. Well, some haven’t. The first historical novel I ever read was Henry’s Golden Queen by Lozania Prole. It had a very lurid jacket . I found it because my mother marched me into a library and said, ‘get a book.’ And I found this! I think it was the colourful jacket that drew me to it. I was bored. I had graduated from books from comics, but I devoured this in two days. It was about Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and that was it. My interest in history was born. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I actually managed to get hold of a copy recently for sentiment’s sake. I’d been talking about it in interviews, when asked how I got into history. I thought, I’ve got to have another look at it. But I couldn’t read it! So not everything stands the test of time. But I went back to these— Tudor Pilgrimage and The Heretics —after many decades and I thought, my goodness, these are so well done. They ought to be better known."