Joanna Hickson

FYI: this book was actually 531 pages for me, including the Epilogue and Author's Note.

This book was pretty middle of the road for me. First of all, I applaud Joanna Hickson for writing about someone as formidable and complicated as Cicely Neville. She's a woman that I've been fascinated with for some time, and I was glad of the opportunity to read about her.

Some pros were the interesting characters and plot. The historical detail added another dimension to the story and made it easier to imagine these people living their lives, as chaotic as those would've been.

The biggest con for me was the writing. There were quite a few, distracting typos, but that wasn't the biggest problem. Hickson is very expository in her writing. Part of that is because the history of the Wars of the Roses is very complex, but it felt like she tried to cram every English nobleman into her story. She would explain who so-and-so was when they only appeared for a paragraph, never to be seen again, and that was annoying. I lost track of everyone after awhile, and I completely forgot about the family trees in the front of the book. I'm sorry to say that if I hadn't read Philippa Gregory first, I would've been completely lost here.

The other annoying thing about Hickson's writing was that she over-explained every situation until the emotional punch was removed from the scene. This got a little better towards the end, but the end also suffered from a generalized overview of the events that I was bored and desperate to finish.

I'm torn on how Hickson employed a second POV in her story. Red Rose, White Rose is told from the perspective of Cicely Neville and her half-brother Cuthbert. On the one hand, I loved reading about battles while being in the thick of them and being privy to scenes where our heroine (and other women) would've been absent. That said, Cicely is a fascinating person, and she witnessed a lot of history in her life, a lot of humiliation and triumph. I would've enjoyed hearing more from her.

This is a longer book, so I wouldn't recommend it to casual fans of medieval history. You'll get lost before you even get started. If you're like me and you're fascinated by Cicely Neville, or you just want to learn more about the Wars of the Roses, then this book is for you. Just be prepared to be in it for the long haul.… (altro)

This book has several advantages over other historical fiction novels covering the same period: it is told from that of the wet nurse of Princess Catherine of France, and that much of the "action" is held "off screen" where the future of Mette - and Catherine - is in the hands of others.

Mette, 14 years old and already the new mother of a stillborn baby, is requisitioned to be the wet nurse to the newborn Princess Catherine, daughter of the mad King Charles of France, who fears that since he is made of glass he will shatter at any moment. Her involvement with the royal family comes and goes, dependant on the moods of Catherine, the Queen, and the Queen's lover the Duke of Burgundy. The royal children suffer the vagaries of political machinations, where they are seen purely as pawns to aid power, and are rarely the recipients of parental or familial love.

Over the following 18 years, Mette becomes more useful to Catherine, and ends up being the Mistress of the Wardrobe. From her standpoint Mette sees the effect Burgundy has on Catherine, and what the political manoeuvring with regards to offering her hand in marriage to King Henry V of England. Henry's reputation preceeds him significantly within the book, and it is second or even third hand that rumour and gossip comes through to Catherine's group.

This book is clearly the start of a series and deals with the machinations leading up to a political marriage - Henry V appears as a specific character late in the narrative, Owen Tudor is a passing (though named) character in the last few chapters who, if you didn't know your history, would make you wonder why the author was labouring so much over a Welsh bowman.

Some characters are, by necessity perhaps, a little two dimensional. This is a story of Mette and her relationship with the future Queen of England. So the character development of Mette's son Luc (hound master to the exiled Prince Charles), daughter Alys (seamstress to Princess Catherine) and Son In Law (Alys's lover who gets her pregnant before they get married) are rather unfulfilled.

This is a nice take on a frequently raised story, decently executed and set up decently for the following books in the series
… (altro)