Annie Garthwaite - The King's Mother

We’re proud to welcome Annie Garthwaite to The Heath Bookshop in the month that her much anticipated second novel, 'The King's Mother' is being published. Annie will be interviewed by our very own Claire from The Heath Bookshop!

Annie and Claire will be in conversation for around an hour. There will then be a book signing afterwards.

ANNIE GARTHWAITE grew up in a working-class community in the north east of England. She studied English at the University of Wales before embarking on a thirty-year international business career. In 2017 she studied for an MA in Creative Writing at Warwick University and, during two years of study, wrote her debut novel Cecily which was published by Penguin in 2021.

Annie’s first novel, Cecily, was named a top pick by The Times and Sunday Times and a Best Book of the Year by independent bookshops and Waterstones. It has now been optioned for television!

THE KING'S MOTHER: 

With energy and ambition, The King’s Mother takes us from the Wars of the Roses to the dawn of the Tudor age – and tells the story of those era-defining wars through the eyes of four women who shaped and suffered them: Cecily Neville, King’s Mother; Marguerite of Anjou, deposed Queen; Elizabeth Woodville, betrayed wife; and Margaret Beaufort, mother to an exiled son.

Reading from The King’s Mother, Annie will describe all that these women did and were driven to do to win the crown for their sons and become King’s Mother themselves. “This,” she says, “is a story of mothers and sons; of maternal ferocity and female ambition – and of all the terror that families can inflict upon themselves.”

And, by focusing on what these women wanted, suffered, knew and did, The King’s Mother gives us a fresh take on some of English history’s most enduring mysteries: Was Edward IV’s marriage bigamous and his children bastards? Why did he order the execution of his brother George, years after forgiving his treason? And did Richard III murder his brother’s children, the Princes in the Tower? The women were there – and they know the truth.

@anniegarthwaite

We look forward to seeing you. 

Catherine & Claire