The Wars of the Roses turned England upside down. Between 1455 and 1485 four kings, including Richard III, lost their thrones, more than forty noblemen lost their lives on the battlefield or their heads on the block, and thousands of the men who followed them met violent deaths. As they made their way in a disintegrating world, the Paston family in Norfolk family were writing letters - about politics, about business, about shopping, about love and about each other, including the first valentine.

Using these letters - the oldest surviving family correspondence in English - Helen Castor traces the extraordinary history of the Paston family across three generations. Blood & Roses tells the dramatic, moving and intensely human story of how one family survived one of the most tempestuous periods in English history.

Blood and Roses is a gripping biography of the Paston family set against the turbulent background of the Wars of the Roses by Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves and Joan of Arc.

About the Author
Helen Castor is a medieval historian and a Bye-Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her book, Blood & Roses, a biography of the fifteenth-century Paston family, was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2005 and won the English Association's Beatrice White Prize in 2006. Her second, She-Wolves, was made into a major BBC TV series. Joan of Arc: A History is her latest published book. She lives in London with her husband and son.

Reviews
"'Sharply written, impeccably documented, structured with the trip and pace of a good thriller' Hilary Spurling Daily Telegraph"



Book Information
ISBN 9780571216710
Author Helen Castor
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 252g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 128mm * 22mm