The English Roses One of the teachers there had described the girls as "The English Roses" which Madonna found "funny". She had already progressed with a few other stories but wanted to write about girls who always felt they did not have "enough". The death of Madonna's mother at an early age had always affected her, and her musical endeavors. So while developing Binah, she drew from her own experience of dealing with her mother's death. Like her, Binah kept a picture of her mother beside her bed. It was Madonna's "own personal experience and I needed to come up with things for
Blood and Roses (book) for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2005. It was also awarded the Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590, by the English Association in 2006. Blood and Roses (book) Blood and Roses: One family's struggle and triumph during the tumultuous Wars of the Roses, by Helen Castor, is a narrative based on the Paston letters of 15th century England. The book traces five generations of the Pastons, an influential family from the Norfolk village of the same name. Based largely on an extensive collection of correspondence, "Blood and Roses"