Enjoyed the book. This is the story of Margaret of Anjou - married to King Henry VI who was crowned King at the age of 9 months. Margaret was a woman of great determination and endless pursuit of power for both herself and her son and ultimately this was her downfall. I am on to the last book of the saga/series and will be sad to see it end. ( )

Like most books by Jean Plaidy, “The Red Rose of Anjou” had the potential of being much better.

The Wars of the Roses – which this novel covers the build-up to, and first half of, those conflicts – is a fascinating and complex period in English history. French history is also incorporated, owing to the main character being Margaret of Anjou, who married England's Henry VI.

Margaret led such a full life that one novel could never do it justice. As with the previous books in the Plantagenet series, the author’s desire to pack about 50 years of history into one volume results in a serious rush job. This leads to lots of "telling" and a severe lack of "showing".

No wonder many reviewers of Plaidy’s works label them as “dry” with so much *telling*, which sometimes sounds like she’s quoting from a textbook.

Another cause of dryness is her continuous use of the passive voice. It's always, “The hands of the king”, or “There were many left dead on the field”, as opposed to the active voice: “The king’s hands”, and “Many lay dead on the field”.

Passive voice = passive prose.

I do like much of the early part of the story, which focuses on Margaret’s childhood, her family, and her connection to the King of France. This period is usually overlooked in novels, and I haven’t read much about Margaret’s early life in non-fiction works, so this proved the most engaging section. It’s also why I’ve rated it two stars instead of one.

Once Margaret comes to England and is married to King Henry, the author has the chance to up the pace and present the reader with intrigue, conflict, action, bloodshed, battles, and develop the main characters and the friction between them. Sadly, what comes to the fore is repetition of information, lame attempts at conflict, underplayed action scenes, and poor character development.

Some of the character exchanges are good, but most lack substance. At times, we don’t even know where conversations are transpiring. In one instance, following a break between scenes, the new scene opens with two characters talking, yet there’s no sense of place. The author/narrator hasn’t given a shred of detail to indicate where the characters are. It’s like they’re floating in limbo. This is poor imagery. At least have them seated at a table, or lying in bed, or taking a walk – anything to give the reader a sense of place to visualise the scene.

As already mentioned, there’s way too much *telling* and not nearly enough *showing*. Take this sentence for example:

>Lord Clifford came into the tent. He was clearly excited. He was very feeble still and he needed rest if he was to endure the journey to London which it seemed necessary to endure. Thus was fought the battle of Wakefield. It was folly from the start to have attempted it. The
Yorkists were completely outnumbered. Many were slain on that field … ( )

http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/2007/06/red-rose-of-anjou.html ( )