"Really loving this one so far - makes me want to learn more about Richard II of England and Charles the Mad of France."
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bookshelves: currently-reading, historical-fiction
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bookshelves: english-royalty, historical-fiction
Wow. The Secret Diary of Ann Boleyn was a HUGE disappointment.
Here's how I imagine Robin Maxwell came up with the idea to write this book...
"Boy, I'd really like to write a book about Ann Boleyn, her story was so tragic. To bad I don't know enough about her to fill up a traditional novel. Also, the only stuff I really care about is the stuff everyone already knows.
Hey, you know who else is cool? Elizabeth! Writing a book about her would be fun, too. But I definitely don't know enough about her to write a book...too bad, because I think her romance with Robin Dudley must have been really hot.
Hey - I know what I could do!"
This was the laziest attempt at a novel I've ever read. It seemed to me that she took the easiest way to write about all the big events in Ann's life.
Her historical details were terribly inaccurate - at one point Ann and her brother George are discussing the king and George mentions Henry's youth - when his father and then his brother, Arthur, died.
I re-read the paragraph several times, certain that I must be reading it wrong, but kept interpreting it the same way. Wow.
There was so much wrong with this book I couldn't begin to list it all.
The only reason I gave it 2 stars is because I loved the IDEA (even though the execution sucked) and because in the end, Maxwell did manage to convey the tragedy that was Ann's life. ]]>
"In one part George mentions when Henry's father and THEN his brother, Arthur, died. Wow, that's a whole new level of inaccuracy."
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bookshelves: historical-fiction
The Last Queen was my first book by Gortner and my first about Juana. I can't wait to read more of both.
C.W. Gortner managed to tell a historically accurate story with authentic characters and events and still make it a joy to read.
We meet Juana in her youth, as a girl of about 14, struggling with the boundaries and expectations she has to live with as an infanta of Spain.
We are with her as she travels to Flanders to be married, as her children are born and her marriage deteriorates, as she is declared heiress to her parents realms and as she realizes that the men in her life are almost entirely untrustworthy.
Juana's mental instability is both called into question and validated in this book, in what feels like a very honest and accurate way. I really appreciated that.
LOVED this book. Very well written, very engaging and entertaining. ]]>
bookshelves: general-fiction
Bleh. It took me 3 days to read this book. 3 days I will never get back.
I did not hate this book, I just can't think of any reason I would ever recommend it to anyone. My time would have been better spent reading almost anything else.
I wanted to like The Memory Keepers Daughter. The writing was beautiful, it had an almost surreal quality to it at the beginning, and the descriptions were captivating. But the story sucked, imo.
I'm sure there are people out there that are depressed throughout their entire lives. People that just can't move on once something horrible has happened to them. I'm not judging them. I have nothing but sympathy for those people. I just don't want to read about them.
This book was a downer. It made me want to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb until it was over. It wasn't tragic enough to elicit a genuine emotional response from me, it just made me apathetic. I kept reading, waiting for my happy ending, (or at least some closure!) But the ending was as "bleh" as the rest of the book.
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bookshelves: non-fiction
A short synopsis of dozens of strange tales about royalty - ranging from things most of us already know (like Henry VIII's tendency to take new wives) to some pretty obscure stuff - like incestuous Roman emperors.
It was a fairly interesting, quick read. ]]>
bookshelves: english-royalty, historical-fiction
I may have gone into this one with expectations that were a tad high.
I was expecting it to be another Here Be Dragons (my favorite SKP book) and it just...wasn't.
Overall, The Sunne in Splendour was a good book. But (for me) it wasn't as good as it could have been.
I thought the portrayal of the Woodvilles - especially Queen Elizabeth - was very one sided and superficial. The idea that Elizabeth was a greedy bitch and all of her relatives were grasping and ambitious seemed the easy way out to me. I expected more from the woman who gave "evil king John" an actual personality and human motivations.
In general the women in Sunne seemed hastily written and very secondary to the story. Anne was the most roundly developed female character, and even she was one dimensional in my opinion.
On to the good stuff!
Penman's battle scenes are amazing. Her descriptive ability is second to none. I cried at two separate occasions in this book, and loved her for it.
She explained this portion of the War of the Roses (or the Cousins War, as it was called then!) very clearly and made it easy to understand. Overall, I definitely enjoyed The Sunne in Splendour. ]]>
bookshelves: english-royalty, historical-fiction
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bookshelves: english-royalty, historical-fiction
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