Dan Jones and Jo Harkin

Historian, broadcaster and novelist Dan Jones and novelist Jo Harkin discuss their latest works of historical fiction set in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Lion Hearts is the final instalment of Jones’s bestselling Essex Dogs trilogy. The story follows the fortunes of ten ordinary 14th-century soldiers in the early years of the Hundred Years’ War. England is reeling from the Black Death and the rising Castilian threat. Each of the ten soldiers had reason to leave the Essex Dogs. However, a life like that is not easily forgotten, and for them the fighting is not yet over. Jones is a renowned writer, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of history books, The Plantagenets, The Templars and Powers and Thrones, and has presented dozens of television documentaries, including Secrets of Great British Castles.

Harkin’s The Pretender, based on a true story, is set in 1480 when the despised Richard III is not long for the throne and the man who will become Henry VII is poised to snatch the crown. History has plans for John Collan, a 12-year-old living in a remote village with his widowed father. He is stolen from his family, exiled to Oxford, then Burgundy and then Ireland before finding himself groomed for power by unscrupulous operators as Edward Plantagenet. Harkin is also author of Tell Me an Ending.