This book is awful. I didn't realize when I first picked it up that it's so dated, and maybe that's where some of the awfulness comes from, but still. Awful. You can write a history textbook, or you can write a novel, but when you try to write both it all just muddles together and neither aspect is very good. Mostly, the characters stand around spouting exposition that reads like 20th century interpretations of 15th century events, or saying things like "Boy, building this dynasty sure is hard work." There are much, much better nonfiction books about the Wars of the Roses, the Plantagenets and Tudors, the princes killed in the tower, and Perkin Warbeck out there. And I am sure there are much, much better novels about the same. It's defenitly not the worst book I've read about the Plantagenets/Tudors, but I would not read it again. Everything that happens, is told through conversations. For example: the Battle of Bosworth is told through a conversation between Elizabeth and a few of men who were there. So there's very little action. Also, I wasn't satisfied with the docile and naïve Elizabeth. In the beginning of the book, you feel her Plantagenet spirit but after a while Elizabeth just becomes a sleek, docile wife. She sacrifices her personal joy for her country and cries and cries for her lost brothers but it just draggad on and on... But the most irritating thing about Elizabeth is how naïve she is! It was realy boring to read over and over again how cold and harsh Henry was and how she would stil believe he would change and they would love each other. The second thing that annoyed me, was the portrait of Margaret Beaufort. In the book she's a very sweet, pious lovable woman and not at all the clever, harsh and ever scheming woman history records her as! It was just weird picturing Margaret Beaufort like a caring woman. In the end, I was diapointed. Although Margaret Campbell Barnes tries, in my eyes, she fails completly.
What do You think about Tudor Rose (2009)?
c1953. How well I loved this book. Fed the passion for English history.
—dono
Good book on a queen I didn't know too much about before.
—Sachin
This book is so bad, I didn't even finish it.
—Harikrishna
