Gregory’s take on the (largely male-determined) fortunes of three Tudor women is venal, petty, and jaundiced but never dull.
The latest installment of Gregory's Tudor Court series fleshes out the sparse documentation on Queen Margaret of Scotland.
This narrative of three queens is told strictly from the perspective, often acerbic, often envious, of only one: Margaret Tudor, who became Queen of Scots when she married, by long planned arrangement, King James of Scotland in 1502. From the age of 12, Margaret delights or sometimes torments herself by making invidious comparisons between herself, her younger sister, Mary, and her sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon, dubbed “Arrogant” by Margaret. As the oldest child of Henry VII, the invading Tudor who deposed Richard III, Margaret has a cynical perspective on her siblings. Arthur, firstborn son, was raised to be king, while Henry, second son, was indulged and spoiled (which, Margaret implies, will have disastrous consequences later). After Arthur dies unexpectedly in Wales, Katherine returns to court and, for a time, much to Margaret’s barely suppressed glee, is in financial limbo while her marriage to the new heir, Harry, is negotiated. Once married to James, Margaret quickly supplies a crown prince. But King Henry’s decision to invade France, Scotland’s ally, subverts the Perpetual Peace Margaret’s nuptials were intended to cement. James is forced to invade England’s border shires, and an army, commanded by Katherine, does battle with the Scots, kills James, and brings back his body as a trophy as well as his bloodied coat, which Katherine sends to Henry as proof of her military prowess. This not only outrages Margaret, but profoundly destabilizes her position. The young widow makes the strategic error of marrying her former meat carver, a charming but false-hearted earl, Archibald. The fractious Scots lairds and their French handlers exile Margaret, taking charge of her two sons. There follows a series of unfortunate, or fortunate, events, depending on how they advance or undermine Margaret’s status, not to mention her right to precede her sister and sister-in-law into the dining hall.
Gregory’s take on the (largely male-determined) fortunes of three Tudor women is venal, petty, and jaundiced but never dull.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-476-75857-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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