The White Queen

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

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Philippa Gregory is back! After the disappointing novel "The Other Queen" about Mary, Queen of Scots, Gregory has returned to the exciting, romantic, and dramatic storytelling and writing that made her novels "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Boleyn Inheritance" famous. "The White Queen", a novel about Elizabeth Woodville, the gorgeous and shocking bride and queen to the young Yorkist king, King Edward IV is a fascinating look into the War of the Roses and the story of the lost princes in the tower.

The novel follows the life of Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian widow with two young sons. The beautiful Lancastrian widow charms the young King Edward IV and ends up marrying him, defying his greatest adviser's plans, and turning her proud family from Lancastrians to Yorkists. The relationship and marriage between Edward and Elizabeth is a happy one producing many children, but there is still strife in the kingdom. Elizabeth Woodville's family is unpopular due to their dramatic rise in favor and there are battles and scheming from the Lancastrian side along with trouble from their own in the Earl of Warwick, Edward's trusted adviser and Edward's own brother, George, Duke of Clarence. Elizabeth Woodville spends many of her years cooped up in sanctuary with her beloved children for protection and worrying if her husband's place on the throne is safe. After Elizabeth loses not only her father, mother, and then husband she is left with her children along with drama and intrigue surrounding her.

Elizabeth struggles to make her young son the rightful king amid drama from her brother-in-law Richard III, the scheming Lancastrian Beaufort family, and rumors and lies swirling around. The famed lost princes in the tower story is played out brilliantly in this novel offering an interesting twist and setting up the story for the fall of Richard III and the Tudor dynasty to begin. The novel is a pure Plantagenet delight.

Elizabeth Woodville was a fascinating woman. A beautiful and calculating widow who won the heart of a king, the mother of the lost princes in the tower, and the grandmother to the future King Henry VIII, it is a pity her story is not told more in historical fiction. Philippa Gregory offers the readers an exciting tale of intrigue, battles, politics, scheming, and romance. Gregory also offers a mythological tale with story of the water goddess named Melusina who is portrayed as being an ancestress to Elizabeth and her mother offering them special powers and visions. Often when Elizabeth Woodville is featured as a supporting character in novels about the Plantagenet period she is portrayed as a scheming and awful woman, but Gregory's version of Elizabeth Woodville offers a proud, intelligent, feisty, and strong woman who wanted the best for the family she loved. Gregory's version of the character seems truer to the woman she really was. The supporting characters such as King Edward IV, the charming and handsome king, Jacquetta Woodville, Elizabeth's loving and wise mother, Anthony Woodville, the dashing and intelligent brother of Elizabeth, Elizabeth of York, the beautiful daughter of Elizabeth Woodville, and Richard III, the dark, but fascinating maligned figure in history are portrayed excellently in this novel. Enjoy the interesting twist that Gregory offers in the lost princes in the tower story.

The only complaints are that Gregory speaks of palaces in the novel that did not exist during this time period such as the Palace of Whitehall and Norwich Palace. The mythological aspect can seem a little far-fetched at times as well. Still though, Philippa Gregory offers a brilliant novel on a fascinating woman and an exciting look at a drama filled time period. The exciting stories of this time period will continue in the future with Gregory's look at Lady Margaret Beaufort in "The Red Queen" about the mother of the future King Henry VII and "The White Princess" about Princess Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and mother of the Tudor dynasty. The Plantagenet period will continue on dramatically and beautifully with Philippa Gregory.