As usual, Gregory delivers a spellbinding (and definitely York-biased) exposé.
In the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses, the new queen of Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty, struggles with divided loyalties.
After he returns from exile to defeat Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth, Lancastrian conqueror Henry Tudor marries Yorkist princess Elizabeth, daughter of Richard’s predecessor, King Edward IV. The marriage, intended to finally reconcile the warring Yorks and Lancasters, does the opposite. Edward’s dowager queen Elizabeth Woodville (The White Queen, 2009) and her sworn enemy Margaret Beaufort, Henry’s mother (The Red Queen, 2010) engineer the marriage, each to promote her own agenda. Princess Elizabeth, who had been the lover of Richard III, is horrified to have her distrust of Henry and his mother confirmed by a pre-wedding rape: Henry and Margaret want to make sure she proves fertile before vows are taken. After her marriage, and the “premature” birth of son Arthur, Elizabeth forms an uneasy truce with Henry that will lead, eventually and after the birth of more children (including future king Henry VIII), to an interlude of genuine affection. However, her mother and she remain York sympathizers at heart, particularly after their young cousin Edward Warwick is placed under house arrest in the Tower. This is an ominous reminder of the imprisonment of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth’s two sons, Edward and Richard, in the Tower, from which they later disappeared. Rumors abound: Prince Richard may still be alive and may be coming to England to assert his entitlement to kingship, far superior to Henry’s. Both Elizabeths know more about such claims than they dare let on: Years before, they had substituted a pageboy for Richard when the two princes went into captivity. A ruthless monarch who rules by intimidation, Henry can never escape the nagging fear that a Yorkist heir will unseat him, especially since the Yorks are so much more likable and better looking than the Tudors.
As usual, Gregory delivers a spellbinding (and definitely York-biased) exposé.Pub Date: July 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2609-4
Page Count: 544
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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