** spoiler alert ** I first encountered Philippa Gregory while working in a library. I was desperate for a juicy read, and a co-worker suggested The Other Bolelyn Girl. It definitely pulled me in, and, though I loved it enough to get my mother hooked on Gregory's Tudor series and race through all of them myself, I never quite managed to feel less-than self-conscious about reading them. All the perfect, lily-white and lovable heroines always struck me as a bit Mary Sueish, and though the history was fascinating, at times her interpretation of it felt overly modern and lacking in grit.

Gregory's certainly come into her own, stylistically and in terms of characterization, in The White Queen

The White Queen is the first of a new series--having exhaustively chronicled the lives of the Tudor women (which, by The Boleyn Inheritance had exhausted me)--she takes us back a generation and introduces us to the Plantagenets and the War of the Roses. This first book is narrated by Elizabeth of Woodville, who certainly seems to have been a worthy subject. A widow, whose secret marriage to King Edward IV raised rancor between he and the man who helped him ascend to the crown, she was also frequently rumored to be a witch.

Gregory's inclusion of witchcraft here, along with the integration of the medieval myth of Melusina, from whom Elizabeth Woodville's family believed themselves to be descended, was one of my favorite things about The White Queen. The myth itself is included within the text and is a beautifully written compliment to Woodville's story. And the acts of witchcraft shine as an almost feminist, but still believably-period trope. Through their spills and charms the Woodville women attempt to maintain some semblance of influence over their lives, lives which are very much largely decided by the political whims of the men around them. This is a welcome change from Gregory's murkier use of witchcraft in her Tudor books. There, the title of "witch" is only ever used as a weapon against women. Here, while witchcraft isn't without its risks, it's a risk that Woodville gladly takes in order to express her desires and hopefully help them come to fruition.

Woodville's motivations generally were varied; she's a refreshingly believable character and remains so as we watch her grow into middle age. But the speed of this growth sometimes frustrated me. The White Queen has an interesting hook and some killer foreshadowing that make the first hundred pages an addictive read, but much of that is lost in the repetition of Woodville's life. That she had child upon child while her husband engaged in war upon war might be historically accurate, but it doesn't always make for riveting reading. There were a solid hundred and fifty pages that could have been excised here without damage to the narrative. And, because I was quite eager to see how Gregory worked the legend of the Princes in the Tower into the story, many of the more mundane plot lines failed to pique my interest.

Still, though, even during the book's saggy middle there were some moments of beautiful writing: the scene describing the death of Woodville's mother and daughter is executed in a particularly artful and tender way. I have high hopes for this new series--perhaps The White Queen represents a new stage in Gregory's writing, one filled with gorgeous writing, nuanced characters and (let's hope) enough new material to sustain the interest of her readers.