The Kingmaker Trilogy, Book 1 Winter Pilgrims and 2 Broken faith - Toby Clements

The Kingmaker trilogy, Books 1 and 2, entitled Winter pilgrims, and Broken faith.
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I’m hanging in there for book 3, to find out what eventually happens to Catherine and Thomas, hoping against hope that their lives become settled and happy. These two books have been a page-turning, historical romp through the very confusing Wars of the Roses. Life in mid-1400’s Britain, whether noble or serf, was precarious. Your noble lord could suddenly change his allegiances, exposing your family to unimaginable danger, and it’s in this climate, at the start of the Wars of the Roses, that we meet Catherine, a nun, (of mysterious birth), and Thomas, a monk.
 
They meet up as they’re forced to leave their cloisters as fugitives and the adventure begins. For safety, Catherine disguises herself as a young boy, Kit; they fall in love, (awkward), and their life on the run begins. They have suitably dastardly arch enemies in Edmund Riven and his father, who will hunt them down out of pure spite. They travel through an England at war between the North and the South. Life is incredibly dangerous and they can’t avoid being drafted into various battles.
 
The battle scenes in these books are just marvellous. Clements describes them with a cinematic quality, you can hear the noise of the battlefield, the clash of steel on battle armour, and the blood flies! Catherine (Kit), discovers she has an amazing aptitude for healing and battle surgery, and Thomas, the former monk, becomes a formidable fighter. Kept safe on their travels is an innocuous book, containing a secret revealing who might be the rightful King. Their mission is to keep this secret from getting into the wrong hands, and to get even with the Riven clan for the multiple wrongs done to them in the course of both novels.
 
In Book 2, (Broken Faith), Catherine (Kit), becomes Lady Margaret Cornford, and switches back again. Sometimes the disguises stretch ones credulity, but Clements manages to make it all work, and you can’t put the book down. I love this series. It’s absolutely brilliant and I’m waiting impatiently for book 3 to come out.
 
LW