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Dimity's Reviews > The Lady of the Rivers
The Lady of the Rivers (The Cousins' War, #3)
by Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)
by Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)
Dimity's review
bookshelves: 2011, first-reads, historic-fiction, read-women-fiction, reading-women-2011, reviewed, series, sold
Nov 09, 11
bookshelves: 2011, first-reads, historic-fiction, read-women-fiction, reading-women-2011, reviewed, series, sold
Read from October 31 to November 05, 2011 — I own a copy
I am not a Philippa Gregory fan and always find myself somewhat mystified by her popularity. However when I saw her newest book up for grabs as a First Reads, I couldn’t help myself and entered to win it. The promise of a magical element in the plot convinced me to give this popular historic fiction author another shot.
I found myself enjoying this novel more than I expected. But it still took me until page 300ish out of 435 to really want to read it for more than just a zoning out tool. My biggest problem with Gregory is that all her protagonists seem like the exact same person to me, largely devoid of personality or any distinguishing features beyond their particular lineage and life span. Jacquetta wasn’t an exception; she seemed just as flat and wooden as the other women Gregory writes about, despite the addition of her magical “abilities”. Despite Gregory’s research into the nuances of the various time periods she writes about, her characters just aren’t compelling to me. There were several redeeming characters in The Lady of the Rivers, namely Richard Woodville and dotty King Henry. Normally, I can easily forgive flat characters if the story makes up for it or there are enough satisfying details about the setting to keep me enthralled. The Lady of the Rivers didn’t really have any of these, although it did have some tantalizing hints of historic detail. (Side note: this novel made it clear in several places that headdresses were in vogue during this time period but the cover art has a typical generic “medieval maiden” sans head covering. Sigh.)
However, this book did redeem Gregory’s status as a decent historical author in my eyes. I’m very interested in reading the nonfiction book she co-authored about the War of the Roses (The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother) to see how she writes in a different genre. In fact, as I write this review it’s rather hard for me to find anything particularly positive to say about this book other than it was readable but yet I feel strangely compelled to read the other books in this series.
I found myself enjoying this novel more than I expected. But it still took me until page 300ish out of 435 to really want to read it for more than just a zoning out tool. My biggest problem with Gregory is that all her protagonists seem like the exact same person to me, largely devoid of personality or any distinguishing features beyond their particular lineage and life span. Jacquetta wasn’t an exception; she seemed just as flat and wooden as the other women Gregory writes about, despite the addition of her magical “abilities”. Despite Gregory’s research into the nuances of the various time periods she writes about, her characters just aren’t compelling to me. There were several redeeming characters in The Lady of the Rivers, namely Richard Woodville and dotty King Henry. Normally, I can easily forgive flat characters if the story makes up for it or there are enough satisfying details about the setting to keep me enthralled. The Lady of the Rivers didn’t really have any of these, although it did have some tantalizing hints of historic detail. (Side note: this novel made it clear in several places that headdresses were in vogue during this time period but the cover art has a typical generic “medieval maiden” sans head covering. Sigh.)
However, this book did redeem Gregory’s status as a decent historical author in my eyes. I’m very interested in reading the nonfiction book she co-authored about the War of the Roses (The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother) to see how she writes in a different genre. In fact, as I write this review it’s rather hard for me to find anything particularly positive to say about this book other than it was readable but yet I feel strangely compelled to read the other books in this series.
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