What do you think?
Richard Victorious
22 August 1485. Henry Tudor lay dead. The Battle of Bosworth was over and King Richard III rode into Leicester in triumph with the cheers of the people ringing in his ears. Elated at his victory and relieved that the Lancastrian threat to his throne was no more, he could now concentrate on ruling a country at peace. Though he still mourned his beloved wife who had died earlier that year, Richard realised that he must next make a suitable marriage to provide an heir to ensure the succession. After his return to Westminster, he discovered the truth of what had befallen his two nephews, the so-called Princes in the Tower, clearing him of any involvement. This is the story of what could have happened if Richard had been victorious at Bosworth. There would have been no tyrannical Tudors and no dissolution of the monasteries. Instead, England would have enjoyed years of peace and prosperity with enlightened laws that benefited the ordinary people in the reign of ‘Good King Richard,’ loved by all who knew him.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
196 pages, Paperback
Published May 10, 2018
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 16, 2020
I give this book an A for effort and a C for execution. The imagination in creating a 30 year reign for Richard is great, which included details such as Thomas More becoming his secretary. However, there were lots of technical faults in punctuation, etc. as noted by others.
In addition, the writing was just not that good. The dialogue was stilted. When Richard’s second wife is thrown from her horse, Rob Percy tells Richard, “I am sorry, Dickon, your beloved queen cannot hear you because her neck is broken.” “Beloved queen” seemed a bit formal under the circumstances. (It is always, “beloved Anne” as well.)
There are lots of long, rambling sentences because the author seems to want to cram as many facts as possible into the smallest space. The greater part of the book seem to more like journal entries of significant events during the reign. But as others have said, the author should put some flesh on the bones of her characters and story.
In the end I do applaud the efforts and imagination in picturing the details of a 30 year reign for Richard.
In addition, the writing was just not that good. The dialogue was stilted. When Richard’s second wife is thrown from her horse, Rob Percy tells Richard, “I am sorry, Dickon, your beloved queen cannot hear you because her neck is broken.” “Beloved queen” seemed a bit formal under the circumstances. (It is always, “beloved Anne” as well.)
There are lots of long, rambling sentences because the author seems to want to cram as many facts as possible into the smallest space. The greater part of the book seem to more like journal entries of significant events during the reign. But as others have said, the author should put some flesh on the bones of her characters and story.
In the end I do applaud the efforts and imagination in picturing the details of a 30 year reign for Richard.
September 22, 2018
Nice story, but perhaps a little lacking in any complexity. Also could have done with a good proof-reading/editing as there were lots of odd errors - Alter instead of Altar, Currant instead of Current etc.
October 25, 2019
The story itself was great and I like to think that this could have been the way things had played out had Richard won the Battle of Bosworth (As he should have!). As sad as it made me, I also liked that the author wasn't afraid of adding tragedy to her story as so many others are. The loss of friends and family members made the story appear realistic, after all, life rarely is all sunshine and daisies.
I greatly enjoyed the characterisation of both Richard and Mary, particularly behind the scenes, so to say, when they are with their family, their close friends and, of course, with one another.
The end was sad and had me hold back tears as first Mary dies in a tragic accident and then, a while later, Richard himself, passing peacefully in his sleep. It was so well done! So wonderfully bitter-sweet that I was deeply moved and that is a thing that happens but rarely since I'm a pretty rational person who is normally rather prone to shaking her head at such silliness. Ah well...
All in all, I would have given this story five stars had it not been for the appaling editing (if there was any at all, that is). While I am not expecting self-published books to be anywhere near perfect, this one hardly had a page without mistakes and not just one or two, but many of them. Particularly the punctuation was often wrong, f.e. using full stops instead of commas. Several sentences also started with lowercase letters while, as if to compensate, several words that should have been spelt in lowercase weirdly enough started with an uppercase letter. One mistake that was made repeatedly was to spell 'capital city' as 'capitol city'. Another quite frequent mistake was the wrong use of apostrophes (or rather NOT using them), often using the plural when it should have been the possessive form.
Two more things were fairly annoying:
- There was decidedly too much unnecessary information on the side characters (and sometimes places) that, while interesting, were of little to no importance to the story and disrupted it noticeably. Yet whole paragraphs were used to tell us when so and so was born and where and what they had done and so forth. The better option would've been to add a footnote or something along those lines. Or perhaps even leave it out altogether since it is not far fetched to assume that most people reading this book are interested in history and know about those people anyway and if not can easily look them up. Another alternative would've been to sprinkle the information evenly throughout the book instead of giving so much of it at a time. And on top of that, the author didn't just explain it once, but occasionally several times over.
- The other thing that pretty much wanted me to bang my head against a wall was the overly detailed description of attire that is so well known from cheap romance novels. Again this was disrupting the story very much and was, as far as I am concerned, completely unnecessary. I wouldn't have minded a side-sentence or even a full sentence in reference to it, but not, once again, whole paragraphs.
Overall, this seems to have originally been written as a fanfiction, which is not meant in a derogative way (I love fanfictions!), and very much reads like a work that has been tackled chapter by chapter instead of as a whole. It works well for most of the story, though sometimes it becomes apparent nonetheless. However, despite all this criticism, as said, I loved it and will surely read it again sometime. Oh, and the way the author managed to weave the necessary politics into it was really impressive and again was refreshingly realistic. Kudos! - It actually makes me even more sad that in reality Richard was killed at Bosworth, whether this would've been the way his life might have gone or not. In my opinion, he deserved a second chance at happiness after all the personal tragedy he had suffered and also more time to prove that he was a good and just ruler who cared about his people.
I greatly enjoyed the characterisation of both Richard and Mary, particularly behind the scenes, so to say, when they are with their family, their close friends and, of course, with one another.
The end was sad and had me hold back tears as first Mary dies in a tragic accident and then, a while later, Richard himself, passing peacefully in his sleep. It was so well done! So wonderfully bitter-sweet that I was deeply moved and that is a thing that happens but rarely since I'm a pretty rational person who is normally rather prone to shaking her head at such silliness. Ah well...
All in all, I would have given this story five stars had it not been for the appaling editing (if there was any at all, that is). While I am not expecting self-published books to be anywhere near perfect, this one hardly had a page without mistakes and not just one or two, but many of them. Particularly the punctuation was often wrong, f.e. using full stops instead of commas. Several sentences also started with lowercase letters while, as if to compensate, several words that should have been spelt in lowercase weirdly enough started with an uppercase letter. One mistake that was made repeatedly was to spell 'capital city' as 'capitol city'. Another quite frequent mistake was the wrong use of apostrophes (or rather NOT using them), often using the plural when it should have been the possessive form.
Two more things were fairly annoying:
- There was decidedly too much unnecessary information on the side characters (and sometimes places) that, while interesting, were of little to no importance to the story and disrupted it noticeably. Yet whole paragraphs were used to tell us when so and so was born and where and what they had done and so forth. The better option would've been to add a footnote or something along those lines. Or perhaps even leave it out altogether since it is not far fetched to assume that most people reading this book are interested in history and know about those people anyway and if not can easily look them up. Another alternative would've been to sprinkle the information evenly throughout the book instead of giving so much of it at a time. And on top of that, the author didn't just explain it once, but occasionally several times over.
- The other thing that pretty much wanted me to bang my head against a wall was the overly detailed description of attire that is so well known from cheap romance novels. Again this was disrupting the story very much and was, as far as I am concerned, completely unnecessary. I wouldn't have minded a side-sentence or even a full sentence in reference to it, but not, once again, whole paragraphs.
Overall, this seems to have originally been written as a fanfiction, which is not meant in a derogative way (I love fanfictions!), and very much reads like a work that has been tackled chapter by chapter instead of as a whole. It works well for most of the story, though sometimes it becomes apparent nonetheless. However, despite all this criticism, as said, I loved it and will surely read it again sometime. Oh, and the way the author managed to weave the necessary politics into it was really impressive and again was refreshingly realistic. Kudos! - It actually makes me even more sad that in reality Richard was killed at Bosworth, whether this would've been the way his life might have gone or not. In my opinion, he deserved a second chance at happiness after all the personal tragedy he had suffered and also more time to prove that he was a good and just ruler who cared about his people.
November 6, 2019
Richard Victorious by Shirley Hall is a work of alternative history. It appears to be a self-published book and sadly, from a technical point of view, is filled with punctuation errors (periods where there should be commas, misplaced or missing quotation marks), and even some misspelled words (those homophones can be pesky).
The story, however, was very entertaining. If I had to come up with a sub-category for this work, I'd call it R3 Lite, because there isn't always a lot of depth to the characters and various plot elements. At the same time the story was pleasant and at times intriguing, and kept me eager to read more.
The new timeline for Richard's life and reign (he ends up living to the good ol' age of 61) draws on an imaginative and plausible use of real history and people. Even Thomas More ends up working for Richard! (A nice change, that.) There were even a few sad moments that got me a little misty-eyed.
If I were beta reading for this writer (something I used to do quite a bit a few years back), I would suggest two things. First, clean up the punctuation. And second, consider expanding on some of the plot elements.
As for rating this book? I would give it a 4 out of 5 for story line, but a 3 out of 5 for technical elements.
Bottom line? I definitely enjoyed reading this book in spite of the technical issues.
The story, however, was very entertaining. If I had to come up with a sub-category for this work, I'd call it R3 Lite, because there isn't always a lot of depth to the characters and various plot elements. At the same time the story was pleasant and at times intriguing, and kept me eager to read more.
The new timeline for Richard's life and reign (he ends up living to the good ol' age of 61) draws on an imaginative and plausible use of real history and people. Even Thomas More ends up working for Richard! (A nice change, that.) There were even a few sad moments that got me a little misty-eyed.
If I were beta reading for this writer (something I used to do quite a bit a few years back), I would suggest two things. First, clean up the punctuation. And second, consider expanding on some of the plot elements.
As for rating this book? I would give it a 4 out of 5 for story line, but a 3 out of 5 for technical elements.
Bottom line? I definitely enjoyed reading this book in spite of the technical issues.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews