Norah Lofts

The house was built in the Old Queen's time: built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home....

“All eyes and hair” a courtier had said disparagingly of her...

Out of the courts of 12th-century England strode the legendary figure of Richard of England leading his knights onto the Saracen battlefields, inspired by a vision of the Holy Land....

“At the age of seven I was a skilful pickpocket. I could sew neatly, write a tolerable hand, make a curtsey and a correct introduction, dance a little and play simple tunes on the harpsichord.”....

“It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me"....

In the autumn of 1817, the arrival of the Ipswich coach and its occupants – a strange, ill-assorted company – changed the lives of those who lived at the Fleece Inn forever....

The House at Old Vine is the second in a trilogy of novels by Norah Lofts about the inhabitants of a Suffolk house from the late 14th century to the middle of the 20th....

When young John Vincent died, the outward respectability of the Cornwall household was undermined....

Julia Ashley was born to a life of dramatic twists and tragedy. Her future and any possible lasting happiness depended entirely on a "glove marriage"....

Eleanor…young, high-spirited, supremely intelligent, heiress to the vast Duchy of Aquitaine – at a time when a woman’s value was measured in terms of wealth....

Sir Godfrey Tallboys was a knight-errant, famous for his success at tourneys....

Ataxerxes, king of Persia, needed a wife. This powerful warrior lord picked the one girl who would have given anything to have been passed over....

A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day....

For the Spender family, the ancient, beautifully kept house had seemed a godsend....

Sir Godfrey Tallboys had come home from the Crusades....

Over two generations, and throughout the turbulent years of the Civil War, Pargeters comes to stand as a symbol of unity for a household divided by conflicting political loyalties and abandoned by its menfolk....

The Wars of the Roses were over, but for Henry Tallboys the battle for survival went on....

When, at the Pollards Harvest Supper of 1817, Araminta Glover was seduced by Jan Honeywood, the outcome seemed inevitable....

Isabella of Spain was a great woman, a great Queen. Crown of Aloes is presented as a personal chronicle....

When William the Conqueror wished to reward his armourer, he made him a grant of land - land worked by freemen and already belonging to a Saxon lord....