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anna__b 's review for:
The Pretender
by Jo Harkin
I read Harkin's first book back when it first came out, and enjoyed it enough to keep an eye out for her next one. Tell Me An Ending is a Black Mirror-esque exploration of an imaginary technology, so I was really surprised to see she was following it up with this very realistic historical fiction. Overall, I think it turned out as a success, and I'll definitely continue to follow the author's career.
Where this book really shines is the characterization of its protagonist, who I'll call Simnel for efficiency's sake. Following him on his journey from a naive farmer's son to a reluctant teenage king to a jaded and hopeless adult was very compelling. Harkin has a way of writing Simnel's thought patterns, especially when it came to his journey with religion, that just made him feel very real and very sympathetic. The side characters weren't nearly as deeply developed, but at least with the key players, you did get a good sense of their personalities and quirks from a relatively small amount of description. I also thought she did a good job of capturing the historical atmosphere, although she did sort of fall into the trap of relying too much on sex jokes/"bawdiness" to make the people of the past seem more relatable. (But I'll admit there were some scenes that really made me laugh.)
Where it suffered a bit is the pacing. And yes, to be fair, this is tied to real-life history so there's only so much you can do with the timing of events, but we're already taking a lot of liberties with what little is known of the real-life Lambert Simnel. The middle could've been sped up a bit, especially the part in France, but it was the ending section after Simnel joins Henry's court that really dragged on for me. Overall though, this was an engaging and emotionally compelling read, that taught me a decent amount of English history to boot.
Where this book really shines is the characterization of its protagonist, who I'll call Simnel for efficiency's sake. Following him on his journey from a naive farmer's son to a reluctant teenage king to a jaded and hopeless adult was very compelling. Harkin has a way of writing Simnel's thought patterns, especially when it came to his journey with religion, that just made him feel very real and very sympathetic. The side characters weren't nearly as deeply developed, but at least with the key players, you did get a good sense of their personalities and quirks from a relatively small amount of description. I also thought she did a good job of capturing the historical atmosphere, although she did sort of fall into the trap of relying too much on sex jokes/"bawdiness" to make the people of the past seem more relatable. (But I'll admit there were some scenes that really made me laugh.)
Where it suffered a bit is the pacing. And yes, to be fair, this is tied to real-life history so there's only so much you can do with the timing of events, but we're already taking a lot of liberties with what little is known of the real-life Lambert Simnel. The middle could've been sped up a bit, especially the part in France, but it was the ending section after Simnel joins Henry's court that really dragged on for me. Overall though, this was an engaging and emotionally compelling read, that taught me a decent amount of English history to boot.