The Lady of the Rivers is the first book in The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels series.
I know this review is long overdue. It was not meant to take me as long as it did to finish reading this book and I will explain why soon.
But first a summary of the book. I don't really know how to describe what happens in the book. The book covers a long time period of about 34 years and I am afraid of spoiling anything. So I am just gonna write the blurb from the back of the book underneath this, that way there wont be any spoilers.
"1435. Rouen, Jacquetta of Luxembourg is left a wealthy young widow when her husband, the Duke of Bedford, dies. Her only friend in the great household is Richard Woodville, the Duke's squire, and it is not long before the two becomes lovers and marry in secret.
The Woodvilles return to the Lancaster court, where Jacquetta becomes close friends with young King Henry VI's new queen. But she can sense a growing threat from the people of England, and the danger of royal rivals. The king slides into a mysterious sleep; Margaret, this queen, turns to untrustworthy favourites for help; and Richard, Duke of York, threatens to overturn the whole kingdom for his rival dynasty, the House of York.
Jacquetta fights for her king, her queen and her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville, for whom she senses an extraordinary future."
There we go, the plot of the book without any spoiler, because I know if I wrote out my own summary there would probably be a bunch of spoilers and nobody wants that.
Time to get into my thoughts and opinions!
I do feel like this book is for someone who likes to learn about history, who like to learn about historical figures and their life. I felt like I was getting a history lesson while reading, not saying that it is a bad thing! It does take place from 1430 to 1464 and the readers do get to see her life from year to year, occasionally a year would be missed but nothing important was skipped over.
The writing is something I am a bit iffy about. I did feel at times it was slow paced, especially at the beginning of the book and a little towards the end. I felt that the first about 100 pages was very slow paced and found it hard to get into the story. It's not like I don't like history, I do. I find history is something that interests me, mostly around the time that this book is set. It was just the writing and how slow it was that slowed me down while reading, and the reason that took me so long to finish it.
I'm not saying that the whole book is like this. No way! After about 150 pages the book does start to pick up and it does get interesting, hence why I was able to finish it and not DNF it. If you are a reader who doesn't mind a slow-paced beginning then I do suggest you pick up this book. I know I am interested in reading the second book in this series, and the rest of the series if I stay interested.
The plot was something I quite enjoyed. I liked seeing Jacquetta grow as a human being and see her develop into the adult she became. I do have to suggest that you refer to the family tree at the start of the book. With all the different characters it can get confusing who is who, so refer to that!
Other than that I think I have said everything I wanted to say about this book. I just found it to be an interesting history lesson.
Just a disclaimer: I am not saying that everything in the book is true as it is an historical fiction. At the end of the novel there is a fully referenced bibliography that suggests that a lot of time and research was put into the characters and their histories.
To conclude, I liked this book and gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
I would just like to say that I would not want to live in the 1400s or any time period around then...
Happy reading!
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