The first of probably not so many...

So, I've finally finished reading my first book of the new year. It's sad really because, over on all the reading blogs I visit, people have already finished a ridiculous amount of novels. I really don't know how they do it -- and what is it, January 15? Hmmpph...and I actually started this book way back in 2008 (well, it was December). I do what I can, when I can -- no matter what, I'll never be able to read all the books I want to read.

Anyway, I've just finished reading THE KING'S DAUGHTER by Sandra Worth. I don't always discuss the books I've read here -- I'm more likely to discuss them on my forum -- and I do not refer to them as reviews because it's really just me rambling -- but I would like to say that the more I read by Ms. Worth, the more I like her style of writing -- which is entertaining and not stuffy -- two things which, in my opinion, make a book worth reading (not that stuffy and edifying don't have their place).

I'd actually had Ms. Worth's THE ROSE OF YORK series (LOVE AND WAR, CROWN OF DESTINY, FALL FROM GRACE) on my To-Be-Read list (and on my bookshelf) for quite awhile before I read them. I didn't choose to put them off -- how I end up reading what I read at any given point is pretty much a mystery -- and these books simply had to wait their turn. I have to admit I prefer novels which paint Richard III in a good light -- and these do -- though I will read those which do not -- I don't get bent out of shape either way. Whether Richard was a monster or simply a man of his time, I have no idea. You can find arguments for both -- and I'm figuring, like most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Ms. Worth's fourth novel, LADY OF THE ROSES really intrigued me. About John Neville (Lord Montagu) and his wife, Isabelle -- who are usually peripheral players in both fiction and non-fiction -- John became quite a romantic figure through Ms. Worth's words, though, like many novels set during the Wars of the Roses, the final outcome is not very uplifting. But, the medieval era is not for the squeamish or those seeking happily-ever-after.

With THE KING'S DAUGHTER (Elizabeth of York -- daughter, wife, niece & mother of kings), Ms. Worth takes the reader through the Wars of the Roses to the aftermath. I get struck by things sometimes -- as if my feeble mind can't comprehend the obvious -- like the fact that Henry VIII was Richard III's great-nephew (and Edward IV's grandson). See how little it takes to amuse me? I also had never considered what Elizabeth (of York) must have felt when Perkin Warbeck -- a pretender to the throne who might have been her brother and who would have had more of a claim to the throne than her husband (Henry VII) -- showed up. While she might have been delighted to find that one of her brothers was not dead after all (her brothers were the two princes which history/legend says Richard III murdered), a new king would have not only usurped her husband but would have put her own son's (Arthur) life and succession in jeopardy. That's what I call between a rock and a hard place. By the way, Arthur never took the throne -- he died before his father did, so the throne passed to the second son, Henry. And, yes, that would be that rascally Henry VIII. Amazing how the wheels of history turned on a dime. Or a death.

For anyone interested in the the era of the Wars of the Roses, you can't go wrong reading the five books which Sandra Worth has written about the period.