‘Queens and Kings’ by Lucy Worsley
Hbk, Hodder & Stoughton, £25
Lucy Worsley has lived and breathed royal history for more than 20 years.
As chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, she worked in numerous British royal sites, from Hampton Court (where she had a flat) to the Tower of London.
Now she takes us behind closed doors to reveal some of the monarchy's best-kept secrets. In ‘Queens and Kings’, Lucy brings to life the rulers who have shaped Britain over the last thousand years, from Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn to Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II.
What emerges is a royal world far stranger, funnier and more surprising than we might think: of intimate love letters, phantom pregnancies, unruly pet monkeys and fatal betrayals.
Venturing through haunted staircases and into private bedchambers, she finds the details that make history feel gloriously human. The result is a wildly engaging history of the monarchy from one of our most beloved historians.
‘Redwood’ by Ben Macintyre
Hbk, Penguin Viking, £25
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From the multi-million copy bestselling historian, the remarkable, unknown Cold War story of how one spy saved the world from nuclear war.
The year is 1981; Tehran is in violent turmoil in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. The Soviets are planning to overthrow the Ayatollah’s fledgling Islamist regime. If they do so, one response from America – unknown to the public – would be to use nuclear weapons.
This is the story of how at the height of the Cold War, one mysterious double agent, known to MI6 as ‘Redwood’, revealed the Kremlin’s secret plot and prevented Armageddon.
This unsung, hitherto unknown hero of the Cold War, a six-foot-four Russian intelligence officer, had a problem, a sexual secret, one that if revealed, would turn his life upside-down. So, he reached out to MI6, believing it to have the only solution – in return for the KGB’s deepest secrets.