I wanted to embrace the time of year when we are all getting wrapped up in our warmer clothing and looking forward to Guy Fawkes night with the crackling embrace of autumn's crisp air and the fiery hues of falling leaves, November 5th brings forth the incandescent spirit of Guy Fawkes Night. As the effigies of Guido Fawkes burn brightly and fireworks light up the sky, it's the perfect time to dive into books that ignite our imagination and spark our fascination with history, rebellion, and revolution. Join me on a literary journey as I uncover a selection of captivating reads that are as explosive and unforgettable as the historical event that inspired this annual celebration. Some of them are aimed at the younger reader but I think they are still worth a read to remind us of the events that took place that night and I hope my book recommendations for Guy Fawkes will kindle your literary passion and set everyone’s imagination ablaze both young and old.
Love Alis X
Title: Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot my Book Recommendations for Guy Fawkes
Author: Antonia Fraser
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Doubleday of Canada Date Published: 1996
Book Length: 347
About Book: In England, November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day, when fireworks display commemorates the shocking moment in 1605 when government authorities uncovered a secret plan to blow up the House of Parliament - and King James I along with it. A group of English Catholics, seeking to unseat the king and reintroduce Catholicism as the state religion, daringly placed in position thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the Palace of Westminster. Their aim was to ignite the gunpowder at the opening of the parliamentary session. Though the charismatic Catholic Robert Catesby was the group's leader, it was the devout Guy Fawkes who emerged as its most famous member, as he was the one who was captured and who revealed under torture the names of his fellow plotters. In the aftermath of their arrests, conditions grew worse for English Catholics, as legal penalties against them were stiffened and public sentiment became rabidly intolerant. In a narrative that reads like a gripping detective story. Antonia Fraser has untangled the web of religion, politics, and personalities that surrounded that fateful night of November 5. And in examining the lengths to which individuals will go for their faith, she finds in this long-ago event a reflection of the religion-inspired terrorism that has produced gunpowder plots of our own time.
Title: God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England my Book Recommendation for Guy Fawkes
Author: Jessie Childs
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Vintage Date published: 2015
Book Length: 480
About Book: A woman awakes in a prison cell. She has been on the run but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London - where she is interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot. The woman is Anne Vaux - one of the ardent, brave and exasperating members of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall. Through the eyes of this remarkable family, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England - an age in which their faith was criminalised and almost two hundred Catholics were executed. From dawn raids to daring escapes, stately homes to torture chambers, God's Traitors exposes the tensions masked by the cult of Gloriana - and is a timely reminder of the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.
Title: Black Powder my Book Recommendation for Guy Fawke
Author: Ally Sherrick
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Chicken House Date published: 2016
Book Length: 320
About Book: England, 1605: 12-year-old Tom must save his father from hanging.
He falls in with a mysterious stranger – the Falcon – who promises to help him in exchange for his service.
But on the long journey to London, Tom discovers the Falcon’s true mission – and a plot to blow up Parliament with barrels of black powder.
Tom faces a terrible decision: secure his father’s release, or stop the assassination of the king …
Title: Fawkes my Book Recommendation for Guy Fawkes
Author: Nadine Brandes
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Date Published: 2018
Book Length: 352
About Book: Guy Fawkes’s son must join his father’s plot to kill the king in this magical retelling of the Gunpowder Plot that will sweep you back in time to a divided England where plagues turn victims to stone.
In 17th-century London two forces rule the people: the colour powers and the Stone Plague. Brown masks can manipulate wood. Black masks control the night. And red masks . . . Well, red is the colour of blood.
Thomas Fawkes’s Colour Test is upon him, and he is sure his father, the infamous Guy Fawkes, will present him with a mask and Thomas will finally bond with a colour. He desperately hopes for a grey mask so he can remove the stone that has invaded his body and will ultimately take his life.
But when Guy refuses to give Thomas his mask or even his presence, Thomas has no place in school or society. His only hope is to track down his father and demand a mask to regain what he’s lost. But his father has other plans: to kill the king.
Thomas must join forces with his father if he wants to save his own life. When his errands for the cause bring him time and again to Emma Areben, a former classmate, Thomas is exposed to a whole new brand of magic. And Emma doesn’t control just one colour―she controls them all.
Emma wants to show Thomas the full power of colour magic, but it goes against everything his father is fighting for. If Thomas sides with his father, he could save his own life―which would destroy Emma and her family. To save one, he must sacrifice the other. No matter Thomas’s choice, one thing is clear: once the decision is made and the colour masks have been put on, there’s no turning back.
Title: The Gunpowder Plot Deceit my Book Recommendation for Guy Fawkes
Author: Martyn R Beardsley
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Pen and Sword History Date Published: 2019
Book Length: 195
About Book: Most people think they know the story of the Gunpowder Plot, and of how a catastrophe was averted at the eleventh hour when Guy Fawkes was caught lurking in the shadows beneath the Houses of Parliament. But what if it wasn’t like that at all? How was it that a group of prominent, disaffected Catholics were able to plot for months with apparent impunity? How could they openly rent a house next door to the House of Lords and use it as their base right under the nose of the leading spymaster of the age, Robert Cecil? How could they have hacked a tunnel towards their target and dispose of tonnes of spoil without alerting anyone and why is there no record of anyone ever having seen such a tunnel? This book explores the idea that the government was not only aware of what the plotters were up to long before Fawkes arrest, but that agent-provocateurs may have given them a helping hand or have even instigated the plot themselves.
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