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qkat's review against another edition
3.0
This will be the last Philippa Gregory book I read. I realized that all the books in this series is the same story, but from different points of view. Too boring and repetitive. Average at best.
dusktildawn's review
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The two of them knew long ago that fortune throws you up to greatness and down to disaster and all you can do is endure.
A sudden and very unexpected contender for one of my favorite books of this year (so far). I am pleasantly surprised at how much better this book is compared to its mediocre predecessors. It's as though the author has finally perfected the formula. I don't know if I am suffering from delusion but there was a noticeable jump in quality. And it only took three books!
The Kingmaker's Daughter has twists and turns, memorable characters, rich dialogue, and stunning emotional beats. The writing was sharper, the dialogue was wittier, the action was stunning, the locations were vivid and every plot point was well executed. There was nothing I hated, nothing that annoyed me, and nothing that made me question why I had bothered to continue with this series despite my apparent apathy.
Like 'The Red Queen' with Margaret Beaufort, we follow Anne Neville, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick the 'Kingmaker' on her journey from a little girl of eight to a young woman on her deathbed at twenty-eight as Queen of England. Both Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville's lives were interesting, full of the sort of shifts and twists that don't seem quite real. But none of them hold a candle to Anne. She goes from Earl's daughter to the daughter of a traitor who rebelled against the king to the Princess of Wales as the wife of her father's former enemy - Margaret of Anjou's son, to a widow at fourteen to a Duchess and heiress as the wife of Richard Duke of York and brother to the king, and then in the last years of her life to Queen of England.
It is as if the years are no more than the mists of Barnet or the snows at Towton: they are gone. It's hard to believe they were ever there.
More happened in her twenty-eight years than happened in the full lives of so many. And a masterful job is done as portraying the ups and downs of her short life - fortune's wheel as she calls it. We follow her through all of it, never knowing (even though I do know) what will happen next. Where will she go? What will happen to her? We travel across the English Channel to the countryside of France to so many royal castles in England, and it is all so wonderfully done. We are with her all the way. Reading as she grows older and hardens herself to the fortunes of the world, growing from pawn to player on the chessboard of England.
This book does not suffer from the crawling slowness and dull characters of Elizabeth's story or the aggravating bull-headedness of Margaret. It is an endearing story about a young woman's rise to power and desire to find herself in the world. We meet her parents, her sister, her husband and brothers-in-law. She becomes a widow, a wife, a mother and a Queen. We spend so much time with all the people in her orbit and we get to know them more intimately than ever. Her relationship with her sister and mother aren't perfect or flawless, they are up and down, full of love and fear and sadness. They felt like real people.
It is immersive in all ways, by building upon already established characters and circumstances to make them better. As with the other novels, so much happens, but it all feels like a natural progression - an inevitable change, a slow unwinding of fate. Thus in the final chapter when Anne is Queen of England and lays dying in her bed, I could not help but feel the weight of the years as she did. I could not help but remember all that she had lost, all that she had been through because I was there with her. I was as weary as she.
The romance between Anne and Richard is well-done, and much better written than whatever Elizabeth and Edward had going on. I felt like they were an actual family who enjoyed each other's company and seemed to genuinely be in love or at least possess actual affection. I loved their trust in each other and the tenderness of their interactions. I'm glad they were written to actually be in love rather than it being solely political. Because despite everything that I knew would happen, I found myself rooting for them.
However, I did not like many of the aspects of Richard's character. Nothing he does comes from his own mind. He does not kill his nephews nor does he suggest that he wants to be king. That is all Anne and his mother's doing. He never does anything bad or treasonous or wrong. Richard is just the loyal brother, pushed to do questionable things by the women around him. It robbed him of all his agency.
Funnily enough, many aspects of this make the other books worse. The best example I can give is that Elizabeth Woodville loses a fifteen-year-old daughter and this is never mentioned at all in her own book, just this one. I don't even recall her name being said. I suppose maybe Philippa Gregory forgot to include that very major point, so she just inserted it here, but all that did was confirm how truly bland that first novel was. This also does the same thing as the Red Queen by making the entire back-half, a soliloquy on the hatred of Elizabeth Woodville but this time - mercifully - it's not only in Anne's head. She talks to others about it in stirring conversations and it is the basis of schemes and plots, rather than driving me crazy with her complaining over and over. Plus it at least makes more sense here, whereas Margaret was well and truly delusional.
And perhaps in fields greener than I can imagine, Midnight the horse is turned out to graze.
Ultimately Anne's story is not one of triumph, it is one of tragedy. She loses so much of her family: her son, her sister and her father. She falls victim to her father's ambition for a crown and when she finally becomes Queen of England, she realizes how truly hollow the crown is, how pointless her hatred of Elizabeth and how stupid her father's lust for power. She dies when she is only twenty-eight and shortly after, her husband dies too. She was the wife of the last Plantagenet, Queen for only three years.
We spent less time with her than Margaret and Elizabeth but I felt like I knew her far better. So when she is dying and dreams of her father's horse (that we have known of as she did since she was a little girl) grazing in the green fields of the unknown, I felt a deep pang of sadness none of the other books have come close to eliciting.
joankelleher's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
southpawcat's review against another edition
4.0
A good example of how Philippa Gregory has the ability to make you feel sympathetic to whichever side the heroine is on. Most of the book was set during the same events as The White Queen, just from a different point of view. It made me want to reread The White Queen and compare. I did find at the beginning of The Kingmaker's Daughter that the story jumped between events quite quickly and I may not have followed it so well if I hadn't already read The White Queen. At the least I thought the writing got richer as the storyline progressed.
lburden03's review against another edition
5.0
This is the third book in The Cousins' War series that I have read, and I love that you can read these books in any order! However, this is the fourth book in the series, if you are following it chronologically. Nevertheless, I absolutely LOVED this book! But that is no surprise since I love ALL of her books! The character perspectives are so well-researched and interesting. I love the strong female characters that she writes about, as well. Her writing style is perfect! Can't wait to read more of her novels and finish this series!
For a more in-depth review, check out my new book blog, A Nook of Blankets and Books!
http://anookofblanketsandbooks.blogspot.com/2014/01/first-of-allyes-this-is-another-review.html
For a more in-depth review, check out my new book blog, A Nook of Blankets and Books!
http://anookofblanketsandbooks.blogspot.com/2014/01/first-of-allyes-this-is-another-review.html
huntressskyfire's review against another edition
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
hazelcoleman's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
hewlettelaine's review against another edition
4.0
Working my way through this series in chronological order(ish) I found Anne Neville a fascinating character. Daughter of a powerful, ultimately self-serving father, thrown to her enemies to serve his ends and then swept up by the infamous Richard III only to have a rather sad end. She had a really interesting life and I think Gregory does well to swing the spotlight onto her. I hope historians give her a bit more attention in future.