Stark and Dramatic

So very excited to be able to review this long anticipated work by  this excellent author.. The book was riveting and of course I was barely able to put it down after I had started. Philippa Gregory's version of the day to day life of Elizabeth of York was stark and dramatic to say the very least.

Henry VII is more obsessed than I could have imagined with the various Pretenders to the throne.Since he is essentially a Pretender himself, this is a bit puzzling. That he was not a good husband to the Princess Elizabeth was not something I had expected, although I don't know why.
His mother and he were known to be controlling and cold and he surely was that. The fact that he put to death or imprisoned many,if not most of Elizabeth's relatives should have been a clue.

Gregory's belief is that a love had grown between Henry and his wife which his strange behavior eventually extinguished. I found that especially poignant and sad and I grieved for Elizabeth. She seems to have had a warmer relationship with her mother and siblings and her cousin Margaret which is a comfort. She adored her children and she had a comfortable life as Queen of England.

Gregory is such a superb writer that all of those things really mattered to me as I read it. It definitely was not just a story but gripped the heart. A must read!