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| Harper 4 December 2014 |
During the troublesome fifteenth century,
the Neville’s were one of the most prestigious families in England, and when Cecily Neville, the youngest daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, makes an
advantageous marriage with Richard, Duke of York, it combines two of the most powerful
families in the land. However, being married
to one of the richest men in the country is not without danger, and Cecily Neville
discovers that life so close to English royalty is fraught with both treachery
and peril.
Beautifully researched, the story
combines the best of both fact and fiction. Throughout the novel, we have Cecily’s
perspective about her life; we see her maturing from a young and idealistic
teenager, to a mature woman with her own children and responsibilities for vast
estates. She is a feisty protagonist, opinionated, controlling but ultimately
loyal to those she loves and respects. The co-narrator is Cuthbert, who is described
as Cecily’s illegitimate half brother; he’s a fictitious figure who gives a
much needed male perspective on what it was like to serve the Neville family. And
as he gets tangled up in the politics and manoeuvrings of the scheming Plantagenets,
we gain insight into the intrigue and deceptions that were so much a part of
this deadly game of thrones.
There is always much to absorb
about the feuding Plantagenets; they were all complex and highly volatile characters
and I think the author does a really credible job of bringing them all alive in
your imagination. The indecision, the instability and the sheer unpredictability
of living through a time of great uncertainty is captured well and although the
book comes in at a hefty 530 pages and covers well over 30 years of feuding, it
isn’t burdensome to read.
I enjoyed getting to know Cecily Neville
and found that the author made the journey into the life and times of the
Plantagenets a really enjoyable adventure, full of thrills and spills, but
never avoiding the real purpose of the story, which was to bring a tumultuous
time in history alive in the readers imagination.
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