Blue Remembered Hills is Rosemary Sutcliff's memoir of her childhood, youth and her first love affairs. It's a classic of perfect writing about her close and not always easy relationship with her bipolar mother, life in the naval dockyards where her father was based, and the beloved family dogs, interspersed with her stoic endurance of physical and emotional pain. Sutcliff writes with joy about her fleeting childhood friendships in a lonely life as an only child. Her lyrical descriptions of the beauty around their remote house in Devon distract the reader from realising the excruciating clinical treatment Sutcliff underwent for years to repair the damage caused by Still's Disease on her joints. She describes how her isolation and her awareness of being physically different informed some of her best-loved novels, as did her early love affairs.
Rosemary Sutcliff Book order
Rosemary Sutcliff was a British author celebrated for her deeply researched and vividly told historical fiction that resonates with readers of all ages. She possessed a remarkable ability to immerse audiences in the past, crafting narratives rich with atmosphere and historical detail. Her distinctive voice brought to life the human experiences and enduring spirit found within bygone eras. Sutcliff's compelling storytelling masterfully blends historical accuracy with timeless human drama.







- 2024
- 2017
Black Ships Before Troy
- 128 pages
- 5 hours of reading
Frances Lincoln is proud to reintroduce the inaugural Greenaway award-winning Black Ships Before Troy. Rosemary Sutcliff brings Homer's epic poem The Iliad to life.
- 2015
Heather, Oak, and Olive: Three Stories
- 120 pages
- 5 hours of reading
"For a child poised between Harry Potter and Tolkien, there really is nothing better than Sutcliff."—The New Yorker "Rosemary Sutcliff is a spellbinder."—New York Times Book Review "The preeminent master of British historical fiction for young people."—Kirkus Reviews Cherished author Rosemary Sutcliff presents three stories of youthful courage and fidelity in ancient times. The Chief's Daughter: A Welsh chieftain's daughter helps a young Irish boy—captured from a raiding party and held prisoner by her father—make his escape, risking the wrath of her gods and her Clan. A Circlet of Oak Leaves: A horse-trader is reminded of his past with the Roman Legions, of the life-changing, secret favor he once did a friend and the glory he will never be able to openly claim. A Crown of Wild Olives: A tentative, but caring, friendship is formed between two young runners, a Spartan and an Athenian, who will compete against each other for the Olympic Olive Crown and the honor of their warring nations. These stories are clever and powerful, the plots twisting and turning unexpectedly while the characters remain always true to their own moral codes. Indeed, in each story the characters are full of heart and human failings—and feelings that transcend time and history.
- 2014
Simon
- 128 pages
- 5 hours of reading
It had never seemed important during their boyhood that Simon Carey was for Parliament and his friend Amias Hannaford a royalist. But when Civil War breaks out, they find themselves fighting on different sides. Finally the day comes when the friends must put their friendship to the test.
- 2014
This brilliant reconception of the Arthurian epic cuts through the familiar myths and tells the story of the real King Arthur: Artos the Bear, the mighty warrior-king who saved the last lights of Western civilization when the barbarian darkness descended in the fifth century. Artos here comes alive: bold and forceful in battle, warm and generous in friendship, tough in politics, shrewd in the strategy of war - and tender and tragically tormented in love. Out of the braiding of ancient legend, fresh research, soaring imagination and hypnotic narrative skill comes a novel that has richly earned its reputation as a classic.
- 2014
Blood Feud
- 192 pages
- 7 hours of reading
Jestyn the Englishman had once been Thormod the Viking's slave, but after saving Thormod's life he became his shoulder to shoulder man and sworn brother in the deadly blood feud to avenge Thormod's murdered father, a feud that would take them all the way to Constantinople.
- 2014
The Mark of the Horse Lord
- 400 pages
- 14 hours of reading
'Take my place, Phaedrus, and with it, take my vengeance . . He is to assume the identity of Midir, Lord of the Horse People, to seek vengeance against the treacherous Liadhan, who has usurped the throne. Ahead of him lies more adventure and more danger than he had ever known in the arena .
- 2013
Knight's Fee
- 288 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Randall is an unloved and unwanted orphan kennel boy at Arundel Castle. And then, one fateful day, he upsets the new Lord's mettlesome horse. Against the violent and turbulent backdrop of Norman England, Sutcliff tells the moving story of a young boy who is wagered and won in a game of chess between a lord and a minstrel . . .
- 2013
Frontier Wolf
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
They tipped out the garbage-bin of the Eagles to make us what we are.'In disgrace after a mistake that cost the lives of half his men, Alexios arrives in Castellum. The Frontier Wolves who man this outpost in the far north of Roman Britain are a fierce and savage bunch, a far cry from the regular legions he'd served in before.
- 2013
Bonnie Dundee
- 304 pages
- 11 hours of reading
It is seventeenth-century Scotland, and the Covenanters - those wanting religious freedom from the dictates of English rule - are gathering strength. Hugh Herriott, fresh from a Covenanting background, finds himself working for redcoat Colonel Claverhouse and his Lady Jean: first as the stable-lad and in later years, as galloper to Claverhouse.
