When Christ and His Saints Slept

Plantagenets, Book 1

By: Sharon Kay Penman

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

In When Christ and His Saints Slept, the first of a trilogy that will tell the story of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, master storyteller and historian Sharon Kay Penman illuminates one of the less known but fascinating periods of English history. It begins with the death of King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror and father of Maude, his only living legitimate offspring.  

Contains mature themes.

©1995 Sharon Kay Penman (P)2019 Tantor

I enjoyed this historical ride!

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters and the narrator was great. Maude was a tough woman and I liked that the author explained how the world was for women of the time.

Amazing Tale of History

Very good book that holds your interest. It was a little longer than it should have been focusing on many characters that are historic but not so important to the story. And that comes from someone who loves long books. Very good story overall.

Plantagenet Schmantagenet

I loved one of Penman's other books but at 32 hour point (36 hours total), this exhausted me. Read the Wikipedia and you'll get the gist. A fictionalized account of the Hundred Years War shouldn't take 36 hours.

Stunner from start to finish

The narrator, Anne Flosnik, made this experience even more sublime. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

What a pleasant surprise:)

When I purchased this book I knew I'd be getting some type of historical fiction. What I DID NOT know was how GREAT this historical fiction would be.
You know how some fiction/historical fiction texts are super long, highly-detailed passages of words, words......Yeah, you get it.
The historical characters in the book were very interesting, powerful people and the author deftly weaves her words, creating space and time....so real you could almost hear them whispering when I turned the page.