The Blood in Winter

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents The Blood in Winter by Jonathan Healey, read by Mark Meadows.

‘You could hardly find a more engrossing or exciting story’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
‘Rollicking’ Telegraph
‘Gripping’ Financial Times
‘History as it should be told’ Alice Loxton

A thrilling political history about the months that brought England to the cusp of civil war, from the acclaimed author of The Blazing World

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES, TELEGRAPH AND HISTORY TODAY

A nation on the cusp of war.

A king ousted from his capital by the people.

A society on the brink of collapse.

Why did the English Civil War break out? From Jonathan Healey comes a thrilling portrait of an English people’s great political awakening, and of a nation that splintered into bloodshed at a terrifying speed.

Critics Review

Jonathan Healey’s brilliant narrative history, sees a spry cast of characters navigate the uncertain lead-up to war . . . Energetic and exceptional . . . Takes us beyond the disputes in Westminster . . . A book that bursts with character, a vivid reconstruction of England on the brink . . . It's a pleasure to read Healey’s stylish and fluid prose . . . A rollicking history, packed with fire and excitement
Telegraph
A lucid, fast-paced and exhilarating account of how, if not necessarily why, England descended into civil war . . . Vivid details brighten almost every page . . . There is hardly a paragraph not enlivened by his eye for the mannerisms, quirks and eccentricities of the actors in his story . . . Highly accomplished and impressively accessible . . . Its pages teem with larger-than-life personalities and dramatic incident . . . The House of Cards-ish drama remains gripping to the last
Literary Review
This superb narrative history adds a rich cast of supporting characters, from Clerkenwell prostitutes to fire-and-brimstone preachers
Telegraph, Books of the Year
Gripping . . . A galloping narrative . . . Healey deftly joins the dots between several points of no return. He writes briskly and accessibly, even to the point of tabloid snappiness . . . Discreetly, and persuasively, merges different currents in civil war history . . . Healey makes these elite manoeuvres lucid, lively, even suspenseful . . . Gives us gripping history from below as well as from above
Financial Times
A forensically detailed, unputdownable account of the bleak winter of 1642, as England tumbled into war. It was dark, messy and complicated but Healey, always with an eye for the everyday and the quirky, tells a thoroughly human story of this most cataclysmic event
History Today, Books of the Year
Netflix should make this enjoyable English civil war history into an epic drama . . . An old-fashioned Westminster thriller, meticulously following the relationship between the proud, prickly Charles and his parliamentary critics . . . Creates a sense of atmosphere from the confusing, claustrophobic warren of the Palace of Westminster to the reeking streets of the City of London
Sunday Times
Gives a relatively familiar narrative startling freshness . . . A fine, engaging and judicious book
Spectator
A detailed, richly atmospheric narrative . . . Healey is excellent at explaining the thorny political and religious issues at stake, but also has a nice eye for local colour: the filth and stench in the streets, the baroque obscenities with which fishwives taunted their neighbours
The Times/Sunday Times, Books of the Year
Such detailed coverage, with the chronology whittled down to months, days, hours and, ultimately, minutes, rests upon the wealth of contemporary accounts that Healey draws upon . . . The Blood in Winter unfolds against an atmospheric reconstruction of Stuart society. In particular, Healey succeeds in evoking the sights, sounds and smells of the palaces, taverns and backstreets of London
Wall Street Journal
Rollicking history, told with verve and great atmosphere by the Oxford historian, which explores the many causes of the English Civil War
New Zealand Herald, Books of the Year
Capacious and chatty . . . Healey peoples these debates with a vast and vividly drawn cast of characters . . . Wisely escapes the deadening simplifications of hindsight, which turn accidents into inevitabilities and potential futures into obvious dead ends . . . Gives room to a snarling lot of lesser-known figures . . . A bustling narrative
New York Times
A really lucid, exciting chronicle of a country that fell apart, full of echoes for now and really worth reading
Politics Weekly
A master stroke. Scholarly but absorbing … Healey is part of a new wave of historical writing that seeks to bring a literary sensibility to the business of assembling a narrative … Unapologetically humorous … This is not just one more book about England’s ill-fated road to revolution, but a triumph of scholarly empathy and perspectival balance that should not go unread
Open Letters Review
An urgent, volatile narrative centred on London in 1641–42, where Westminster’s rituals collide with a noisy, politicised city thick with rumour and menace, and where the deteriorating relationship between Charles I and Parliament is traced with forensic care, capturing how hardened positions, mutual distrust and inflamed language can swiftly turn disagreement into disaster
Engelsberg Ideas
Healey has done it again. The Blood in Winter is history as it should be told, where new light is cast upon one of the most dramatic years in British history. Shaped by meticulous research and a narrative worthy of any political thriller, the result is masterful
ALICE LOXTON, author of Eighteen: A History of Britain in Eighteen Young Lives
A gripping and elegantly crafted story. Jonathan Healey writes with clarity, compassion and a keen eye for human truth. A truly affecting read
ROB RINDER
The build-up to the English Civil War is a political thriller like no other. Moving from field to street and alehouse to Parliament, Jonathan Healey captures all the tension and excitement of those critical few months when the country teetered on the brink. He shows clearly, immersively and with a tempo that matches the moment just how quickly a constitution can unravel and violence prevail
JESSIE CHILDS, author of The Siege of Loyalty House
This is everything a history book should be. Healey fills his narrative with portraits of extraordinary characters, which combine to make his account of Britain’s descent into Civil War a truly human one. Nothing could be more relevant to us now, in this political moment, than a history like The Blood in Winter that gives an example of how fast and almost accidentally nations can fall apart, and the individual decisions of conscience that must be made along the way’
OPHELIA FIELD, author of The Favourite
Bristling with energy, packed with humour and humanity, The Blood in Winter unfolds like a thriller to tell the dramatic story of how England collapsed into civil war in 1642. In his trademark clear and compelling style, Healey mines rich research for vivid treasures to give us narrative history at its finest: quite simply superb
MIRANDA MALINS, author of The Puritan Princess
A superb history. Healey has the rare ability to make the seventeenth century accessible without being patronising, and to cover big and important themes while keeping the reader royally entertained
SAM FREEDMAN, author of Failed State
A terrific evocation of one of the most dramatic periods in British history, when everyone was forced to take sides in a monumental conflict whose consequences resonate to this day
PAUL LAY, author of Providence Lost
Healey is in the vanguard of modern popular history, and The Blood in Winter charges like a squadron of cavalry through the tumultuous year that led to the civil wars, giving equal billing to the people’s politics that shook the streets of London and the arguments and doubts that filled the houses of parliament
NADINE AKKERMAN, author of Invisible Agents

User Reviews

Book 4.5
Narration 4.5
5.0
5.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook dealing with the events leading up to the English Civil War/ War of the three kingdoms. Not a dull moment and an excellent narration.
Liam 08/09/2025
4.0
4.0
An informative and detailed account about the years leading up to the English Civil War.1641-1642.
ring01 29/07/2025

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