Hello! Thank you for visiting my Amazon page. It's a great privilege to be on here - and to say hi to readers. Thank you very much for all your support and interest in my books!
I grew up in a very modern house in a dormitory village in the Midlands- and as a consequence became completely obsessed by the past. When I was about six, we got a new washing machine - and I took the huge cardboard box, covered it in silver foil and told my little brother it was a time machine. I used to rumble it about and tell him 'Look! We're in Egypt in the time of the pyramids - but you can't get out!' So he had to listen to all the stories inside, my poor brother...
'One of Britain's best young historians', Independent.
'Historian Extraordinaire', The Today Programme, Radio 4
'Queen of historical fiction' and 'History at its best', Guardian
'Unforgettable', (the book, not me!), The Lady.
'Gripping, seductive', The Times
I'm still looking for that time machine - and still living in it, really as I am obsessed by history.
Thanks so much for coming with me in my time machine.....
My latest novel, Edge of the Fall, is about the DeWitt family in the 1920s as they try to make sense of their lives in the aftermath of the war. It's the Flapper Age - and everything is in flux. As Kirkus puts it, there is ' a beautiful socialite threatened by a stranger, a murder trial and a baby born out of wedlock' - 'strange disappearances, unexplained deaths, dramatic births and a juicy court case' Grazia
'Brilliant', Daily Mail
'Gripping from the first page', 'Thrilling' 'a must read', Grazia
'Imbued with a sharp awarenss of the devastating effects of war in any era, Williams' novel presents sympathetic characters who transcend history', Kirkus
My previous novel, The Storms of War, is the first in a trilogy about the de Witt family. The first explores their lives from 1914-1918, as the youngest girl, Celia, sees her perfect world crumble and change. I've wanted to write about the wars since I visited the trenches in France when I was ten on a school trip. I was fascinated by how small they were - and how men could ever live in such places. I really wanted to go into the lives of Germans - the Victorians couldn't get enough of them. Then - almost overnight - they were the enemy and people saw German spies everywhere and the newspapers demanded that all Germans in the country be imprisoned. At the beginning of the book, Rudolf and Verena have four children - and their lives will never be the same again.
'Quietly impressive...hard to put down....Gripping, thoughtful, heartbreaking and above all human', Kirkus (starred review)
'truly affecting...richly detailed, light of foot..tantalises with loose ends and disturbs with shocking shadows', Independent
'Fans of Downton Abbey will love it, as do I', Alison Weir
'Vivid....fascinating,' Observer
My most recent history book was in 2013, Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon (UK) and 'Ambition and Desire: the Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte' (US). It has been optioned by Ecosse Films (Nowhere Boy, Mrs Brown) and they are working on the script now.
'I send you a thousand kisses, but send me none back because they set my soul on fire', wrote Napoleon to Josephine.
In 2012, my book about Elizabeth II, 'Young Elizabeth' was published, exploring the Princess's life before she became Queen - and how the abdication of Edward VIII changed her world. In 2011, I co-wrote The Ring and the Crown with Alison Weir, Tracy Borman and Sarah Gristwood about the history of royal weddings.
My previous novel,The Pleasures of Men, about Catherine Sorgeiul, a young woman in 1840 who terrifies herself with her obsession with a murderer, appeared in 2012. I began writing the book while living in Paris, one summer - as she found herself wandering the streets alone at night, Catherine and the Man of Crows came into her mind.....It was the Simon Mayo Book Club Book in January, shortlisted for the London award and the screenplay is underway.
'Kate Williams is already an accomplished biographer, the Pleasures of Men shows a soaring talent let loose', Independent.
My second book, Becoming Queen, about the passionate youth of Queen Victoria and Princess Charlotte, England's lost queen, was published in September 2008. It was serialised in the Sunday Telegraph Stella Magazine, and a Book of the Year in the Tatler and Spectator. I made a BBC 2 show about it, acclaimed by Radio Times as 'superb', receiving 2.2 million viewers.
Her first book, England's Mistress: the Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton was published in 2006, after five years of research in archives across the world. It was Book of the Week on Radio 4, a Book of the Year in the Times and the Independent and shortlisted for the Marsh Prize for Biography. 'A wonderful, sparkling biography', Amanda Foreman. Look out for the Emma Hamilton exhibition coming to the Maritime Museum in 2016!
I appear regularly on radio and TV. I was the social historian on our three series of BBC 2's Restoration Home and I am the in house expert and historian at CNN. I've also talked history and royals on the Bake Off, the Jubilee, royal wedding, coronation anniversary and Prince George coverage - and appeared often on Newsnight, Today, Sky News and various documentaries. I have made two radio documentaries, on Samuel Smiles and the history of the smile. I studied my BA and DPhil at Oxford and took MAs at Queen Mary and Royal Holloway. I'm now Professor of History at Reading University.
It's a great privilege to write - and I love hearing from readers. Thanks for coming to my Amazon page!
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