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'

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!