For hundreds of years of human history, women didn't own property, we were property: bought and sold and traded by the men around us. The usual way that women are bartered is the grand old institution of marriage. Before it was idealized by Disney movies as the end state of True Love, it was more a business transaction than anything else. They might have had sweet gowns, but no one was more vulnerable to being the glue in a new family alliance than the daughters of medieval nobles. Philippa Gregory's fourth novel in her Cousin's War series, The Kingmaker's Daughter, focuses on just this: the way the Earl of Warwick, one-time beloved mentor of Yorkist King Edward IV, uses his two daughters, Isabel and Anne, as pawns in his game of power. Though the girls knew every comfort their father's considerable wealth could bring them, they were ultimately helpless to do anything but marry as they were told.

For Isabel, that meant wedding Edward's younger brother George, the spoiled favorite always looking for a way to depose his brother. When an attempted rebellion in his favor was quelled, Warwick allied himself with the Lancasters, and married his younger daughter, Anne (whose perspective this book follows) to Edward of Westminster, the only child of the deposed Lancastrian King Henry VI. The uprising in support of the old king and then the young prince ultimately failed as well, and Anne was taken in by her sister and brother-in-law while her husband was executed. While Isabel eventually died in childbirth (as was unfortunately common in those days), Anne married her other brother-in-law...the youngest of the York sons, Richard. Richard eventually becomes King Richard III, making Anne the queen of England, as her father had once dreamed...but this triumph was undermined when her son, her only child, died around age 10. Anne's own death followed not long thereafter.

This is a solid, unspectacular entry in Gregory's series. She's helped by the fact that Anne's life was kind of bonkers, with her father's shifting alliances, her marriage into a family that she had known as sworn enemies her entire life, her lengthy confinement at her sister's hand and the escape she had to plot to marry Richard, the fact that she and her sister declared her mother legally dead and imprisoned her so they could seize their inheritance, her struggles to conceive, brief happiness on the throne and then a fade-out, made all the more sad by her husband's attention to his beautiful young niece, Princess Elizabeth York. Gregory doesn't give Anne a particularly big or compelling personality (she's kind of blandly plucky and determined), so it's fortunate there's a lot of plot to weave around her. Reading it just made me reflect on how trapped women of that era were in a lot of ways: Anne is constantly put into situations she doesn't want to be in because the men in her life (her father, her first husband, her brother-in-law, her second husband) decide to do whatever is best for them, and she just kind of has to deal with or plot to undermine them as best she can.

There are some quibbles I had with the way Gregory told her story: I thought the witchy woo-woo stuff with the Woodvilles that I find irritating was a little overdone, though it does track that a woman like Anne would have believed in it. And like I mention above, Anne's characterization isn't especially strong despite her position at the center of the story. For the most part, though, the plot trots along briskly and it's engaging and entertaining. If you're this far into this series, you've probably figured out what you're going to get from it, and this book neither delights or disappoints. Solid historical fluff read! ( )

My favorite in the series so far! ( )

The Kingmaker’s Daughter —Philippa Gregory’s first sister story since The Other Boleyn Girl —is the gripping tale of the daughters of the man known as the Kingmaker, Richard Neville, Earl of the most powerful magnate in fifteenth-century England. Without a son and heir, he uses his daughters, Anne and Isabel, as pawns in his political games, and they grow up to be influential players in their own right.

At the court of Edward IV and his beautiful queen, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne grows from a delightful child to become ever more fearful and desperate when her father makes war on his former friends. Married at age fourteen, she is soon left widowed and fatherless, her mother in sanctuary and her sister married to the enemy. Anne manages her own escape by marrying Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but her choice will set her on a collision course with the overwhelming power of the royal family. ( )

Unlike the novels so far in the series, The Kingmakers Daughter tells the story of a Queen whose story doesn’t end in success but is filled with heartbreak and sadness. Yet another women caught up in the orders of the men around her and she inevitably suffered and had little control over her own life. For such a strong character to have had so much sadness happen to her and in such a short life time, truly sums up the vitality of the era. ( )

I read this novel at the same time as I was reading The School that Escaped the Nazis. Talk about brutal! From killing whomever to get the throne of England to Hitler killing indiscriminately, the books presented a harsh look at evils that exist in history as well as the beauty of the individual spirit to care and love others in the midst of the brutality.

Of course I've heard of the War of the Roses, but I knew nothing about it. It is all a game of thrones. Anne's father is the Kingmaker. He puts a king on the throne and when the king doesn't listen to him, he puts another one on the throne. He vacillates based on who gives him control. If a king wants to make his own decisions, the Kingmaker strives to remove him. Anne and her sister, Isabel, were raised as a member of one of the most powerful and richest families in England. Without sons, the Kingmaker tells his daughters that they will be Queen. Depending on what is going on and who he is supporting, the Kingmaker tells one daughter she will be Queen and then circumstances change and he tells the other daughter she will be Queen. Both girls are married to the brothers who are part of the War of the Roses. Isabel looks to be the next Queen when she is married to George, the king's brother. When the Kingmaker seeks to take Edward (the king) off the throne, he backs George. He also marries Anne to the son of the former king, Edward of Westminster, but he dies in battle trying to get the throne back. In the ensuing battles, the Kingmaker dies. Anne's husband also dies. Anne becomes a well-watched guest of George and Isabel (in-house prisoner). Both girls feel destiny should make them a Queen, which can create some competition and controlling issues between the sisters.

Wanting to escape from her sister, Anne knows she needs to leave, but where would she go? It's when her childhood friend, Richard, tells her that he loves her and will take her away that Anne begins to find herself. Richard is the King's and George's brother. Yes, the sisters are married to two brothers. They are also related to them. As women, their roles are to have children, heirs. Richard is known for his loyalty and doesn't have mistresses. He truly loves Anne. George and Isabel become a compatible husband and wife, working to unseat George's brother, the King. Unfortunately, Edward listens to his wife. The brothers believe that Edward's wife Elizabeth has too much influence and has placed her common born family in high places, raising them above their station. The sisters believe Elizabeth is a witch and has cursed them because the Kingmaker killed Elizabeth's father and one brother. There is little hope to usurp Edward because they have a lot of children. Isobel has healthy children, so they could form a lineage. Anne only has one child.

I found life in the 1400s brutal. I liked that Richard was portrayed as loving and respectful toward Anne, but Anne always knows that she has a lower station. She doesn't ask him questions although he confides in her. She has an on again, off again relationship with her sister as they vy for the throne. Women were objects. Marriage was for political reasons; the wife was to expect her husband to attempt to impregnate his wife even if they didn't like each other. Anne's first husband didn't care how Anne felt about their wedding night. People were killed ruthlessly. Kill children if it meant you might be King or Queen. In addition, it was easy to die in childbirth or for children to die of an ailment. They didn't have medicine. They also believed in witchcraft. I would not want to live in this time period.

I enjoyed the book, engrossed in Anne's life but thankful that women have more rights although we continue to fight for more. It's an interesting look at a turbulent time in England's history. ( )