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Paperback
Publisher: NAL Trade
In fourteenth-century England, beautiful Queen Isabella-humiliated by her weak, unfaithful husband-is emerging from the shadows to take her revenge. But her newly arrived, twenty-oneyear-old Welsh handmaiden, Gwenith de Percy, also seeks vengeance-against the English invaders who crushed her beloved Wales. Isabella's once-golden marriage is now her penance. Due to his rumored relations with men, Parliament forced Edward to share his throne-a demeaning arrangement that torments Isabella. With the help of her secret, noble lover, Roger Mortimer-an enemy of her husband, imprisoned in the Tower of London-the queen plots to take control. Thrilled by this turn of events, Gwenith realizes that a king cannot afford to be weak-especially when his formidable, discontented queen seeks his power as her due.
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| Not too bad of a read |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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This was the third book I have read covering this particular period in English history. Some of you may be familiar with a bit of this period, thanks to the Mel Gibson film Braveheart, though that movie obviously took many liberties with history. The previous books I had read about this period all portrayed Queen Isabella as a spiteful woman, totally deserving of her eventually nickname "the She-Wolf." She is much more sympathetic in this novel and I didn't feel like I hated her at the end of the story (even though by most accounts she probably was pretty bad).
Isabella, Princess of France, comes to England married to Edward II (son of the great Edward I, who beat William Wallace). She is completely in love with her handsome, tall, golden haired husband at first, even comparing him to King Arthur. Edward eventually kills that love (and does a really good job at it, too) because of his blatant flaunting of his preference for his male favorites (first Piers Gaveston, then Hugh Despenser). Isabella sees how the barons of England are fed up with how Edward rewards his favorites with land, titles, and money and how he seems to leave the governing of his kingdom to these favorites. They can't stand how powerful the favorites become just because the King will deny them nothing. She fears that her son (the future Edward III) will not have a kingdom to inherit if things don't change. The king's current favorite, Hugh Despenser, is a greedy, power hungry man who is making enemies all over England; rich or poor it doesn't seem to matter as he manages to anger them all. It is during this time that she meets and falls in love with Roger Mortimer, a prisoner in the Tower, and helps him escape to France. After being reduced basically to a prisoner by Hugh Despenser after he has convinced Edward that Isabella can't be trusted (her servants, money, and children all taken away and Despenser's wife is put with her to "guard" her), she contrives to be sent to France to plead with her brother for peace between the two kingdoms. Once there, she begins making plans to return to England and overthrow her husband, setting her son on the throne (and of course, rule through him). She refuses to return to England, knowing that once there she'll be back in the clutches of Despenser and powerless to do anything about it. After almost two years in France and then Burgundy, she, Mortimer, and her son Edward, sail back to England with an army supplied by Burgundy, where they are victorious without a sword being drawn. The barons and the people of England are quite happy to have Edward off the throne just to get rid of the influence of Despenser. Isabella is finally able to extract revenge on the Despensers (quite gruesomely) and Edward II gives up his throne to his son. At the end the author gives a bit of a different twist on what eventually happens with Edward III, Isabella, and Mortimer, making it seem as if Isabella realizes that Mortimer is becoming like the Despensers and helps her son escape from his clutches.
Since in the other books I have read that deal with Isabella make her seem like a real b***h, this was quite a change and made me see that it COULD be possible that she wasn't quite as evil as history seems to make her. There are times when I feel like she is being a bit selfish or blind, but overall she does come across as much more likable. As to the historical accuracy of this, I am unsure. It seems reasonable to believe that Isabella, for example, would have wanted her husband "out of the way" so there could be no attempt to place him back on the throne and would most likely have been aware of plans to remove him, though in the story it seems like she is portrayed as not realizing what was going to happen to him. Edward II, on the other hand, really seems completely inept for the job of being king and is completely blind when it comes to his favorites, refusing to believe anything negative about them. I never really felt any sympathy for him because he ignored advice from everyone and walked right into disaster.
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| I agree, poorly written. |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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And usually I can tough things out but the dialogue was so banal, so crappy, that I couldn't continue. And it wasn't believeable. Is it a cliche to say the characters were 2 dimensional? Well they were. I didn't get past 15 pages. Sorry Edith Felber. I don't know who Mary Jo Putney is (except for the glowing review your book cover boasts) but she has terrible taste in writers!
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| Just like the cover this book is beige (and clearly no research was done on the subject) |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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This book sat in my to read stack for two years or so (ever since it was published) and I never got around to reading it. To admit a completely stupid emotion I even felt guilty for having it sit around for so long getting no attention from me. But regardless when I did pick it up and read it I was a little...stunned. Not because this was some fantastic novel that redefined my life or because it was the worst piece of trash ie ever read that left me attempting to scrub my brain with soap to get the bad words out of my head. Not I was stunned because a more mediocre novel I have never read.
I guess it's a good thing that the cover was beige because this whole novel was just.....bla. While apparently the plot is like, edge of your seat, biting your fingernails, peeing in your pants exciting, in reality it's dull. It doesn't even have the imagination to be confusing, it's just boring.
So Gwenith (in reality this should be called a book of Queen Isabella and Gwenith the random royal Welsh girl) had her whole family destroyed by Edward Longshanks during his campaign to get ride of the Welsh princes of Wales and had vowed to her dead grandmother to everything she can to get ride of the present Edward, Longshanks son. Being a lady of waiting to Queen Isabella she gets a chance when a Welsh knight pleads his master's case to her and asks that the queen might meet with his master, Mortimer.
Doesn't sound bad-well it is. On top of all of the historical inaccuracies (and there are soooo many-either this author did no research and went off of what she learned from movies like "Braveheart" or there was no editing at all or both. I mean fiction is fiction, but in historical fiction you need to get the facts strait-you can pay with character emotions, things that are disputed by the historical communities...but not strait out facts!) The plot inches along at a snails pace. Even the action parts of the book are boring. There are only two interesting things in the whole book in fact, one is Isabella and Edwards fights which are really something and the other is the intimation that Edward III is not the son of Edward II, but his real father is never named.
Anyway, this book is a great way to put yourself to sleep. I managed to finish it, but unless you like sleeping all the time or being in a catatonic state, I wouldn't recommend it.
One star.
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| Queen of Shadows by Edith Felber |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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This lady Edith Felber should write more historical novels. Tres bien!!! She definitely rates among the top authors of historical novels. If it didn't have two sex explicit scenes I would want it to be placed in all school libraries. The girl students nowadays love this kind of literature but this book wouldn't pass the approval of our school board.
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| Waste of time and money! |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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I realize a historical fiction is fiction but usually the author does research and builds the fiction around the facts. I am not an expert and even I picked up on the inaccuracies (not just the dates, places and events but the customs, speech, dress, etc.)
I gave this book one star because of the historical figures she started with and the only good parts in this book are Isabella's interactions with Despenser. I can't say this would even be a good book if you like romance because the love scenes were not fantastic.
Over all this book is poorly written and I am not sure it's the writers fault or the editor. There's so many mistakes it's hard to read through it. The characters are weak, the plot is weak, details of the period are not that discriptive or all wrong. It's so unbelievable, it's comical. As I was reading this book, I thought if it became a movie it would be a cartoon.
If your looking for a good historical fiction, look for Sharon Kay Penman or Anya Seton or even Philippa Gregory.
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