Reviews
PRAISE FOR ALISON WEIR
"Alison Weir has perfected the art of bringing history to life. There is a breadth of vision to [her] research and writing that provides a sense of time and place as well as consequence." (Chicago Tribune)
"Rich in detailed research, Alison’s engaging prose [has] captured the interest and imaginations of countless people, instilling a love of history that influenced the career paths of historical fiction writers, historians, and teachers, while also greatly increasing knowledge of medieval English history among people throughout the world." (queenanneboleyn.com)
"Weir perfectly combines the dramatic colour and timing of a historical novelist with th truth to fact of a scrupuloys historian." (The Times)
"Alison Weir is our top-selling female historian and she has this incredible gift for producing high-quality, intelligent books at an astonishing rate. Kate Williams is another one. They have fantastic historical brains and yet they can really bring it alive, whether it's history, plain and simple, or historical fiction." (Charles Spencer)
"Her work is both scholarly and readable - an enviable talent to possess." (The Bookseller)
"Alison Weir has a wonderful way of bringing... history alive." (Manchester Evening News)
"Alison Weir`s hugely popular history books are as gripping as novels." (The Times)
"Alison Weir is one of our greatest popular historians." (The Daily Mail)
"Alison Weir writes compellingly. Her art is such that the reader is swept along by the story, scarcely noticing how very complicated that story is." (The Literary Review)
"Alison Weir is one of our best popular historians and one, moreover, with an impressive scholarly pedigree in Tudor history." (Frank McLynn, The Independent on Sunday)
"Weir provides immense satisfaction. She writes in a pacy, vivid style, engaging the heart as well as the mind." (Amanda Foreman, The Independent)
"Weir is a master at elucidating the interplay of realpolitik and character... Her assiduousness and informed judgement are what make her a writer to trust." (The Boston Globe)
"I don`t know another historian who can match Weir in showing the cold political calculation, implications and ramifications of the marriages and murders of the English monarchy; so when this clear-eyed anatomist of realpolitik finds reckless passion and bruised feelings shaping history, I am inclined to believe her." (The Boston Globe)
"The scope and depth of Weir`s research provide a wealth of detail missing from many other narrative histories about the Tudors." (Publishers Weekly)
"I've been Alison Weir's publisher for about nine years, in Pimlico and Cape. We've gone from her being a respected historian to the point where she's a phenomenon. Her last Pimlico paperback, Eleanor of Aquitaine, sold 100,000 copies. Her most recent book, about Henry VIII, has sold over 25,000 in Cape." (Will Sulkin, Alison Weir's non-fiction commissioning editor, Publishing News, 2002)
"One of our most accessible historians, Weir is scholarly and straightforward." (Waterstones Books Quarterly)
"Mrs Weir is a fine story teller, basing her texts on very deep research. Her detail is immaculate. She manages her complex material well, but it is her set-piece stories that impress; many have never been told so well." (Teaching History)
"Weir's great strengths lie in knowing which sources to choose, and her proper scepticism in sorting propaganda from accounts with the ring of truth." (The Glasgow Herald)
"Alison Weir creates engrossing narrative history." (The Boston Globe)
"Weir is so much the master of the period, so intuitive and unsentimental an interpreter of royal minds, and so upfront about her assumptions." (The Boston Globe)
"No matter who the royal subject, no matter if it is fiction or non-fiction, Alison Weir can always be counted on to tell a superb story." (Booklist)
"Alison Weir has become an authority on Britain`s royal families. She has blown the dust from archives that have mouldered for years in dusty palaces and museums. The result is a series of vivid cameos as brilliantly conceived as they are scholarly." (Birmingham Post)
"Alison Weir has a reputation for producing well-researched, well-written histories." (Yorkshire Evening Press)
"Alison Weir has a brilliant handle of character-driven history titles." (The Bookseller)
"Weir wears her learning lightly and has a pleasant habit of anticipating all the questions of a curious reader." (Publishers Weekly)
"Alison Weir [is] a robust and very readable Tudor historian." (The Daily Post)
"Weir is an expert on Tudor history, and her work is both scholarly and readable - an enviable talent to possess." (The Bookseller)
"If only Alison Weir`s works had been around when I was sitting my history A-levels." (BBC Homes and Antiques)
"Alison Weir's great strength is her ability to make dense, fact-packed history seem like a pleasurable, engaging novel." (Suite 101)
"Alison Weir, who combines exacting scholarship with the ability to make complex, indeed, labyrinthine political affairs comprehensible, engrossing and bloodcurdling, is one of the best historians of the British monarchy at work today." (The Boston Globe)
"Part of Weir's gift is relating history in a familiar, friendly, often-conversational way." (The Nashville Tennessean)
"As Weir so ably shows, there is more to writing history than comforting readers by rehearsing the familiar stories." (Lisa Jardine, The Literary Review)
"Weir is a master at weaving centuries-old details into a lively, compelling narrative." (Chicago Tribune)
"Weir is one of the best-selling popular historians. She writes entertaining, readable histories." (Hatchards)
"In the last ten years, the quality of Alison Weir's prose has made her the most popular historian writing in Britain today. No less than five of her books featured in the Waterstone's Top 20 bestselling history titles last year. There are many reasons for this. Alison Weir writes readable, enjoyable, convincing popular history - great stuff!" (Waterstone's History Guide, 2003)
"Weir is an expert on Tudor history, and her work is both scholarly and readable - an enviable talent to possess." (The Bookseller)
"Ripping good reading!" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
"When historians go into print, they must strive to achieve a readable style without sacrificing historical accuracy. Miss Weir achieves this with consummate ease." (Yorkshire Evening Press)
"Alison Weir [is] established as one of the foremost authorities on the history of England's oft-troubled monarchy." (San Francisco Chronicle)
"Weir is a respected historian known for making her complex subjects accessible to the average reader." (Fort Worth Morning Star)
"Alison Weir [is] one of the best historians of the Tudor age." (F Magazine)
"The finest historian of English monarchical succession writing now is Alison Weir. Many and great are her books." (Boston Globe Online)
"Ms Weir cannot be faulted in her endeavour to research anywhere that will add dimension to her subject." (Surrey County Council Magazine)
"She is an expert on the [Tudor] period." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Antonia Fraser and Alison Weir are beacons of hope and real role models for aspiring female historians." (Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator, Historic Royal Palaces)
"Weir's great strengths lie in knowing which sources to choose, and her proper scepticism in sorting propaganda from truth; the result is a complex mixture of politics and personalities." (The Glasgow Herald)
"Weir is one of our top historians." (Caledonia magazine)
"Alison Weir is something of an authority on the monarchy of years gone by." (South Wales Evening Post)
"Alison Weir is a gifted writer, [Her] research is always first-rate and her narratives accessible." (Tucson Citizen)
"David Starkey and Alison Weir [are] the two best Tudor historians we have working today." (Philippa Gregory)
"Splendid . . . In giving narrative voice to her subjects, Alison Weir brings us into emotional contact with them in a way that an unadorned historical account does not." (The Boston Globe)
"Weir's books are always compelling reading, because not only does she write clearly and engagingly, but she weighs the facts in evidence and consider the bias of multiple sources, and lets the sources speak." (www.thehistorylady.wordpress.com)
"Mrs Weir is a fine story teller, basing her texts on very deep research. Her detail is immaculate... She has read more widely in contemporary texts than recent historians... She manages her material well, but it is her set-piece stories that impress; many have never been told so well." (Teaching History)
"Alison Weir is the best kind of popular historian. She writes with an obvious wealth of research and scholarship under her belt." (The History Review from Waterstone's Booksellers)
"Alison is an impeccable researcher, a brilliant writer and a gifted storyteller." (Your Family Tree magazine)
"A fine writer with a wonderful gift for description." (The Literary Review)
"A meticulous scholar." (The New York Times)
"She weaves fact and fiction really well, and it is more believable for it." (Poppy Coburn)
"Alison Weir has the rare gift of being able to bring history vividly to life." (Choice magazine)
"Weir is a UK-based writer and historian who is the leading female historian in terms of book sales in her country. Readers of Mantel’s work who wish to dive further into the women involved with Henry VIII will particularly appreciate her focus on the history of women and families in British history and may especially enjoy her books that portray each of the king’s wives. Weir also writes nonfiction that combines her gifts for writing and research into volumes that trace the lineage of England’s royal families." (Book Riot, 2022)
From History Today, May 2013:
"One of the very best of [historical] novelists, although possibly not someone who would be comfortable described as a 'romance' writer, is Alison Weir, the acclaimed historian, whose fiction merits our attention due to its assured style and precision. Weir is the template in many ways for the historian's move to fiction; her work is strongly based on her research and attentive to the key details of the period. As a consequence her novels have sold hugely around the world. They are well written and thoughtfully plotted, and A Dangerous Inheritance is sharp and pungent at times in its consideration of early modern politics and identity. In terms of reputation Weir is not helped by the problematic marketing of her books; they look very much like [Philippa] Gregory's. Indeed, she is sometimes ignored as 'just' a writer of romance historical fiction, when her work is really worth considering alongside the best of the genre." (History Today, May 2013)
"No one knows more about this [Tudor] era than historian and bestselling author Alison Weir." (NPR)
"Utterly gripping and endlessly surprising." (Tracy Borman)
"Hugely enjoyable... Alison Weir knows her subject and has a knack for the telling and textural detail." (Daily Mail)
FOR REVIEWS OF INDIVIDUAL BOOKS, PLEASE VISIT THE BOOKS PAGES.