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S'està carregant… The Lady of the Rivers: A Novel (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels) (edició 2012)de Philippa Gregory (Autor)
Informació de l'obraThe Lady of the Rivers de Philippa Gregory
Books Read in 2024 (1,645) al.vick-series (297) S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. A nice historical romp through the first part of the War of the Roses - very well written, mostly accurate where accuracy was possible and for the first two thirds a real page turner. Interestingly the story starts staggering when the real fighting action starts, probably due to the narrators point of view being maintained, and she didn't see a lot of the fighting. But good enought to put the second book in the series on my to read list. 1435 Rouen. Jacquetta Luxembourg, left wealthy widow when husband Duke of Bedford died. The Duke's squire Richard Woodville is her only friend. They welcome lovers and marry. they return to England to Lancaster court, where she becomes with King Henry Vi's wife Margaret of Anjou.Jacquetta has 'sight', but not able to foretell from it. It is a turbulent period of war between the House of Lancaster and York. Bloody and vicious. J&R have 14 children, Elizabeth (the eldest) marries Sir John Grey of Groby and then King Edward IV (secretly). It is difficult to step too the period when witchcraft an alchemy was active and feared which makes the narrative more fokelore than totally convincing. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Pertany a aquestes sèriesContingut aPhilippa Gregory Cousins' War Series Box set: Includes White Queen, Red Queen, Lady of the Rivers, and Kingmaker's Daughter de Philippa Gregory Philippa Gregory's The Cousins' War 3-Book Boxed Set: The Red Queen, The White Queen, and The Lady of the Rivers de Philippa Gregory Distincions
When the death of Joan of Arc shows her the dangers faced by strong women, Jacquetta, a psychic descendant of a river goddess, studies alchemy and becomes the secret wife of Richard Woodville before returning to the court of Henry VI. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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Gregory begins Jacquetta's story with a meeting between our heroine and Joan of Arc as pre-teens, while Joan is being held by Jacquetta's uncle. This is used to establish the plot device of Jacquetta's family's claim to be descended from water goddess Melusina, and set up Jacquetta's interest in fortune-telling, primarily through tarot cards. When Jacquetta grows up, she's married off to much-older John, the Duke of Bedford and brother to the King of England. Gregory paints this marriage as never consummated...the Duke is mostly interested in using Jacquetta to further his interest in alchemy and believes she must remain virginal to do so. They never develop much of a relationship, but she does develop a big old crush on her husband's chamberlain, a handsome young knight called Richard Woodville. When John dies, she and Richard wed...in secret, at first, because technically Jacquetta needs the Crown's permission to remarry and knows they'll never allow the match.
From there, Jacquetta and John join the English Court, under the rule of Henry VI and his high-spirited French bride, Margaret of Anjou. Jacquetta becomes Margaret's maid of honor and closest friend, and is by her side through most of the events of the early period of the Wars of the Roses...at least, when she's not having children, because she's basically constantly pregnant. She tries to protect the Lancastrian Royal Couple from themselves (pious, timid Henry lets powerful-minded nobles run him roughshod and drain the royal treasury, and his lack of marital attentions to his lively wife leads to an affair), only to mostly be unsuccessful. When her husband is captured in battle with the Yorks and has to swear to set down arms against them to be freed, Jacquetta is relieved to leave Court behind and settle down to life as country gentry...until, of course, her oldest daughter Elizabeth comes to the door hand-in-hand with Yorkist King Edward.
Since this book provides much of the backstory for The White Queen, I was afraid it would be just as immersed in the kind of silly mysticalism that's all over the previous book and made it so hard for me to enjoy it. Happily, though, there's much less of that in here, and it's integrated into the plot in a way that feels organic. My biggest issue with The Lady of the Rivers is that Jacquetta herself is a fairly passive character who mostly reacts to the events around her. Margaret of Anjou is the one who drives them, and I kind of wish she'd been the protagonist instead, because she seemed BONKERS in a delightfully dramatic kind of way.
Look, I like Philippa Gregory's books. I don't think they're super high quality, but they're enjoyable to read and as much as I like to be pretentious about my taste in novels, sometimes something that's fun and easy doesn't have to be more than that. But if you've read her work before, you know what you're getting into: high drama and questionable historical sourcing. Sometimes they're a little better, sometimes they're a little worse. This falls on the mid-point for me...it's fine. It's not amazing, it's not terrible. I liked reading it and I'd read it again if I do a read-through of the whole Plantagenet-Tudor cycle like I'm planning on one day. I'd recommend it if you like Gregory's work, but if historical fiction is not your thing, it's not unmissable by any means. ( )