The Content Reader

This is a review also for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge Recently I read The King's Concubine  by the same author. Being a fan of historical fiction and loving reading such fiction about real persons, this was a very good book. It was also about Alice Perrers, of whom I did not know, and even the king, Edward III, to which she was the mistress, and the queen, Philippa of Hainault, I didn't know that much. But after such a book, it is easier to grasp history as well. It was with great happiness that I downloaded The Forbidden Queen  by the same author. She does not make you disappointed. It seems as always, well researched, and she is able to make the persons come alive. This book is about Catherine of Valois that were wed to Henry V in 1420. She was a young, naive girl, having grown up in a monastery. She fell in love with her husband. The times were turbulent so most of the time he was off fighting in the war with France. She bore a son in December 1421, the fut...

This book I read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge   - Renaissance books. I read the summary of this book and thought it sounded interesting. It is rather early in the history of the English kings and I do not know so much about this time. I did not like this book at all for about the first quarter of the book. Maybe because it was written in first person and sometimes this makes the narrator very self-righteous and I think this was the case here. Furthermore, it was very sweet, too sweet, everyone was soooo good! Alice Perrers, the narrator and the concubine, comes by lucky(?) circumstances to be the damsel to the queen. That is Queen Philippa of Hainault, married to Edward III. They love each other very much and have 12 (I think) children together. Now she is sick and can not come to his bed - or he to hers - maybe most likely in those days - so she chooses Alice to be his concubine. Edward does not want to betray his wife and reluctantly (!!) takes Alice to his bed...