A review by kris_rainboes
The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir

5.0

I'm kind of stunned at how enthralled I was by this book. I'm not usually much of a nonfiction reader, but I found this fascinating. I'm certain it helped that I knew almost nothing about the time, so I could read with a fair amount of suspense. It also helped to know that the Wars were an inspiration for "Game of Thrones", and I could say things to myself like "Okay so Margaret of Anjou is basically Cersei Lannister without the incest, got it." The author moved things along quite quickly, and covered almost a century of history in just over 400 pages, which kept things from getting dry. I did have to do a fair amount of flipping between the family trees and the index and the text to remember who all the various nobles were, but that's to be expected. Highly recommend. Be aware, though, that this book only goes through the 1470s, and does not include the juicy bits with Richard III and the murder of the princes. But fear not, Weir wrote a book on that, too, which I'm starting next.