The Bland Queen

I have finally finished 'The White Queen' by Philippa Gregory, the second in the 'Cousins at War' series of books (chronologically anyway!).

'The White Queen' picks up where 'The Lady of the Rivers' finished, with Jaquetta's (Lady Rivers') daughter Elizabeth Woodville heading out to meet King Edward IV at the roadside.  Elizabeth is a noted beauty and Edward a notorious womaniser, so it's not surprising that romance (or lust depending on how you look at it) follows.  The couple marry in secret, an act which has terrible repercussions, bringing war back to the country once more.  Whether married for love or political ambition, Elizabeth, now the White Queen of York, finds herself on a journey that sees her become by turns first lady of the land and outlaw in sanctuary fearing for her life and the lives of her children.  So where will the White Queen's Wheel of Fortune stop turning?

'The White Queen' by Philippa
Gregory (Simon & Schuster
UK Ltd, 2009)

I'm sorry to say that I didn't really begin to get into this book until about two thirds of the way through.  The first part is basically historical fiction romance porn, full of lust and illicit love affairs, the second part sees Elizabeth a long way from the action (at this point I wanted to follow her husband's narrative, not hers) and finally, in the third part, the White Queen starts to get fleshed out a bit and become a real, interesting character.

The final chapters see her hiding in sanctuary with her children, at which point conflict begins to develop between her and her eldest daughter, all based around Elizabeth's 'ambition'.  To be honest, I hadn't noticed that she was ambitious until this point, just that she was a pawn of her mother (who has changed a lot since 'The Lady of the Rivers'). But once she'd been told she is ambitious, Elizabeth seemed keen to make up for lost time.  As well as being ambitious, Elizabeth is also shown to be hopelessly politically naive, which makes it much easier to see her as a human being and even begin to relate to her.  Before that, I couldn't get any sort of grip on her motivations and it made it hard to like/dislike/care about her.

There also seems to be a lot of padding in this book, a lot of phrases and ideas repeated within pages just in different words.  I got absolutely sick of hearing about Elizabeth's hat coming off and her hair being unpinned and falling down.  Also, the habit of modern language slipping through which I first noticed in 'The Other Queen' has reared its ugly head again.  Note to editors: If a sentence ends with 'here' and when you delete it the meaning stays the same, then delete it.

Sadly, this book feels like a first draft.  There is a really great story in here and it's an OK read if you've got the time to spend on it, but I know Ms Gregory can do better and it's really disappointing to read something that just doesn't hit the usual mark.  Then again, it's often things going wrong that make you appreciate it when they go right.  So bring on the Red Queen!