Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The mysterious Lady Kate

While scanning through Waterstone's list of historical novels this morning (with thanks to Kieron for making me look at their site again), I noticed what looks like a new historical novel from Pamela Hill: Lady Kate, from United Writers Publications, a subsidy publisher from Cornwall. I'm wondering if this is the same Pamela Hill who wrote many historicals, mostly for Robert Hale, starting in the 1950s. Her novel Flaming Janet (aka The King's Vixen) about Janet Kennedy, a mistress of Scotland's James IV, is one of my favorites, despite the silly title - which may have been pretty risque back in 1954, who knows. I own nearly everything she wrote.

What intrigues me is that the subject of Lady Kate is very much typical of Hill. Per Amazon UK (Waterstone's doesn't have a description) it's about Lady Katherine Gordon, wife of Perkin Warbeck and several other men besides - I don't know much about her later life. Unfortunately, the Tudor lady on the jacket art appears to be sporting a five o'clock shadow.

Even curiouser, Fantastic Fiction not only has Lady Kate grouped with older Hill novels, but it lists several newer ones too, mostly from United Writers. One is about Shakespeare's supposed journeys in Scotland, which is also in keeping with her usual subjects. I wonder why she's not with Robert Hale any longer, and why I hadn't heard about these additional novels before.

Has anyone else read her? Many of her older novels were published in the USA. And you can read more here (from a previous blog entry) about her novel Countess Isabel.
Posted by at 9:53 AM

4 comments:

  1. Susan Higginbotham2:36 PM

    I saw a book by Hill called Royal Saints & Saintly Royals (by a different subsidy publisher) that has this on the Amazon page:

    "Henry II, the devil's descendant, is a favourite of the author, who published CURTMANTLE in 1996 with Robert Hale and has written a large number of accurately researched historical novels and two books of non-fiction."

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Saints-Saintly-Royals-Pamela/dp/1418491616/ref=sr_1_13/026-5076241-2542023?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182972671&sr=1-13

    I'll have to look around for her stuff. I saw The Madcap Duchess at a book sale last fall, but it really didn't look up my alley--the stuff set in earlier periods might be.

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  2. Sarah Johnson3:19 PM

    Interesting. That's her, all right. Generally I've enjoyed her earlier novels more than her later ones, but I'm curious enough to take a look at the recent subsidy titles.

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  3. Carla7:43 AM

    I hadn't heard of these novels either - thanks for the information.

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  4. Anonymous11:32 PM

    Ohhh, I liked her book "Norah" a lot, and I think I have a few others although I haven't read them yet. It would be nice to think she's still around!

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