Crowning Conspiracies

Hello darlings!  Have you missed me?  Know I've missed you, so let's get cracking.

I recently finished reading 'The Kingmaker's Daughter' by Philippa Gregory, the fourth instalment in her Cousins' War series covering the conflict often called the Wars of the Roses.  It took me a while to get around to reading this because, although I loved the first book ('The Lady of the Rivers'), I didn't enjoy the next two novels as much, so rather lost the impetus to keep reading.  With so much publicity around a new book by Ms. Gregory, however, I was reminded how much I enjoy her work and decided to go back to the 1400s and see what was happening.

'The Kingmaker's Daughter'
by Philippa Gregory
(Simon and Schuster, 2012)

Anne Neville is the youngest daughter for the great Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker for his part in bringing Edward IV to the throne.  But fortune's wheel is always turning and when the King secretly marries Elizabeth Woodville rather than the French princess Warwick has negotiated for him, he realises he's losing both the power and influence for which he fought.  Resourceful and cunning, Warwick decides to use all his assets to regain his status, including his only children, daughters Isabel and Anne.  The girls become pawns in a risky struggle, used by power-hungry men in a game of high stakes and ultimate prizes.  But in a world where people will stop at nothing to win a crown, is anyone truly safe?

Reading this book proves a theory mentioned in my blog about 'The Red Queen', the previous title in this series.  I'd found the novel dull partly because I'd only just read 'The White Queen', which covered the same-ish time period, just from a different character's perspective.  I found it harder to keep reading because I knew what was going to happen.  By 'The Kingmaker's Daughter', however, I'd forgotten the details of the earlier books and found my interest once again piqued by Gregory's choice of narrator and perspective, as well as her superlative skill in conjuring a sense of time and place.

I've always preferred reading historical novels that explore the politics of an era and this is a key theme of 'The Kingmaker's Daughter'.  Though pretty powerless, Anne and her sister are often at the centre of plots and counter-plots that see allegiances change and their status rise and fall.  They get used so often by the men around them over their lifetimes that paranoia takes hold and, even when they do achieve their aims, they are unable to enjoy it or think of anything other than keeping hold of their positions.  As such, this book is full of a tension that kept me reading right until the end.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  It's even made me want to go back and give its predecessors a second chance.  But I do have another one or two books to read first!

Now, what next..?

Related Posts

Cousins' War Novels

'The Lady of the Rivers'
'The White Queen'
'The Red Queen'

Also by Philippa Gregory

'The Other Queen'
'The Virgin's Lover'