Poetry of Reading

No one believed I was destined for greatness.

At the beginning of the novel, her life as a princess of Castile is shattered when her father dies, and her half-brother, Enrique IV, becomes King of Castile. She, along with her mother and younger brother, Alfonso, are forced to live in poverty and are barely acknowledged by her half-brother, the king. However, danger comes to both Isabella’s and Alfonso’s front door when a group of power-hungry noblemen wants to rebel against King Enrique and install Alfonso as king in his stead. Isabella finds herself in a dangerous situation and must make the ultimate choice to be loyal to King Enrique or Alfonso, whom she had always looked after. Isabella is a brave and intelligent woman. She is loyal to her king and country because she believes that it is God’s will. However, King Enrique IV does not trust her and instead tries to undermine Isabella’s influence by using her as his pawn. He prevents her to marry her love, Prince Ferdinand of Aragon and threatens to take away her succession to the Castilian crown. For Isabella to get both her kingdom and her prince, she must use her intelligence, her courage, and her unyielding faith in God.

Love her or loathe her, the Isabella found within these pages is an extraordinarily compelling woman. In an age when queens were expected to be controlled, she determined to chart her course, arranging her marriage against the explicit wishes of her half-brother. While it is generally believed that Isabella did not meet her husband-to-be, her cousin Ferdinand of Aragon, until their wedding day, Gortner takes some license with the record to suggest an earlier meeting between the two, a moment in Enrique’s court which plants the seeds of a relationship that would blossom into a love story for the ages. While there was an undeniably strategic political advantage to their union, benefiting both parties and their respective kingdoms, theirs is a life-long partnership that transformed the trajectory of their people forever. Theirs is an electric partnership, fraught with tension, but in the end a “marriage of true minds”, a ground-breaking union where each cherished and valued the contributions and strengths of the other.

For a fifteenth-century Catholic monarch like Isabella, the dictates of the church were the literal alpha and omega, the beginning and the end by which all decisions are measured, and heresy and dissent in matters of faith are not to be tolerated. By understanding the fallibility of Isabella’s now legendary, larger-than-life persona, and restoring her humanity he delivers an unvarnished, compelling portrait of a woman who fought for the right to determine her future and strove to live out her faith in the best way she knew how for good or ill. While the consequences of allowing the Inquisition into Spain or of the expulsion of the Jews aren’t fully analyzed, the agony and fear that went into Isabella’s decisions are fully explored, resulting in a perfectly realized portrait of an imperfect, but a compelling woman.

In The Queen’s Vow, Isabella emerges as a fully realized, multi-faceted woman, a compelling and contradictory mix of tradition and ground-breaking, forward-thinking independence. With meticulous attention to detail and a deft hand for period mannerisms and dialogue, Gortner excels at bringing Isabella and her world to life on the page. He is the rare author capable of balancing his audience’s modern sensibilities with a soul-deep understanding of the time in which Isabella lived, a gift of restoring the triumphs and short-comings of his leading lady, capable of explaining her motivations and fears with a compassionate and clear-eyed touch. A Gortner novel is an experience to savor, and Isabella’s story is no exception by turns exhilarating, maddening, and heartbreaking.

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.

A young scholar, Roland, stumbles accidentally on an old letter from acclaimed poet Randolph Ash. He soon has reason to believe that the letter was to Christabel La Monte, a lesser-known “fairy” poet — except Ash was happily married, and La Monte was single all her life. Roland and the cool fellow scholar Maud investigate caches of hidden letters, poems, and diaries by the lovers, wife, friends, and relatives.

In the past, the cordial letters of Christabel and Randolph blossomed into love and passion. They vanished for a short, blissful time together. But what happened to Christabel and Randolph’s love? And how do these events somehow involve Roland and Maude’s growing attachment?

 When words are hidden or read, it can change perceptions, attitudes and even lives. Byatt’s own words are wonderfully lush, dreamy and vivid — given the rather formal language and writing, it almost seems like a nineteenth-century novel, as if Byatt got so swept up in the characters she started writing like them.

Byatt has an excellent eye for the language of the era, crafting letters, poetry, and fiction that have a very authentic feel. Byatt even manages to change the style for different people’s writing . The only problem is when the book veers into long tangents; Byatt seems to get a little off-track at times. But most of the time, the richness of Breton folklore adds depth and mystery to an already beautiful novel. 

Byatt gives us an amazing look at the ill-fated lovers, Christabel and Randolph; you can feel their passion and love. They aren’t just attracted to each other but drawn together in the mind and spirit. The supporting characters, such as the artist Blanche and devoted, wistful Ellen Ash, are equally well-drawn; you can’t dislike any of them. Roland and Maud seem a little anemic by comparison, but they are still compelling characters, caught up in a love affair from over a hundred years ago.

“Possession” is the genuine heart-wrenching romance that you see little of — meetings of minds, pure passion and love. It’s a beautiful thing, and something to be deeply treasured.

My Rating:

✬✬✬✬✬

Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: The love of a king

When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realises just how much she is a pawn in her family's ambitious plots as the king's interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take fate into her own hands.

A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamourous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.

My Review:

“You can smile when your heart is breaking because you're a woman.”

Philippa Gregory retells the story of Anne Boleyn as seen through the eyes of her younger sister, Mary. The Boleyn Girls, along with their brother George, have been attending the king of England’s court since they were children. At the age of fourteen, Mary captures the attention of King Henry VIII. Even though both of them are already married, Mary and Henry become lovers at the insistence of the Boleyn family, which uses Mary as a pawn in its desire for advancement within the royal circle. Mary struggles with her desires for the king, her loyalty to her husband, and her rivalry with her sister, Anne, who eventually surpasses Mary in the king’s eyes and sets her sights on becoming the next queen of England.

This is, first and foremost, the story of Mary Boleyn, a woman who has generally been reduced to a footnote in history. It is notable, however, that she was the only Boleyn sibling to survive the purges of the Tudor court and who, ultimately, married for love in an age when this was not the norm among those of her class. It is also the story of Anne Boleyn, her rise and fall, as seen through the eyes of her sister, Mary.

Gregory focuses on the rivalry between sisters Mary and her more infamous (and unlucky) sister Anne, playing on traditional archetypes in fairly obvious ways: while Mary is presented as fair, conventionally pretty, not especially bright, and all English, Anne is dark, intelligent, ambitious, "French" (with all the negative associations that are attached), and self-centered. Yet it is these flaws that make both characters compelling, and readers have to pity the lack of freedom and individual agency the women have as pawns of the powerful men in their lives. 

To a lesser degree, it is also the story of their brother, George, a more remote, though no less interesting, personage. His interjection into the story is necessary, as the author attempts to address the issue of incest that arose at the trial of George and Anne Boleyn. She gives quite an interesting perspective on the issue, weaving it, part and parcel, into the story to explain his downfall, as well as his betrayal by his wife.

Told against the magnificent backdrop of the Tudor Court in all its splendor and majesty, the author weaves a complex tale of greed, ambition, sex, and political machination, and unparalleled intrigue, in sixteenth-century England. Filled with well-fleshed characters taken right out of the annals of history, the story is one that is sure to delight all those with a love for well-written historical fiction. The author makes no bones about how women were used as pawns, devices in a dangerous game of ambition, scheming and desire to advance a family’s reputation.

While the book is not historically accurate, the miscues and factual errors aren’t glaring enough to disturb the flow of the novel, and Gregory should be commended for nailing the sycophantic and cutthroat atmosphere that prevailed in the Tudor court.

1. An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (✬✬✬)

It is essentially a murder mystery told from four different viewpoints- each storyteller had some unique version of the same events/time period and each came to a different conclusion who murdered the victim. The “truth” learned at the very end of the book is gratifying and makes it worth the read, as does the breadth of ideas and subjects involved. Mr. Pears should be highly commended for both his elegant and articulate writing style and his magnificent scholarship. And he does, finally, put everything together with the last narrator. But, sadly, instead of breathlessly turning pages to find the answers to the vast number of perplexing questions posed, I instead found myself glad that the book was ending.

2. Secrets of the Tides by Hannah Richell (✬✬)

The storyline started off being interesting, but after reading around half of the book, I felt it became predictable and tedious. I did not enjoy it but made myself finish it with a bit of speed reading.

3. The Family by Mario Puzo (✬✬✬✬)

This book is a very different, very intimate, very compelling look at the Borgia family. The unapologetic and sympathetic manner in which the author depicts the passion between Cesare and Lucrezia may horrify some readers, but others will find it moving and tender.

4. Virgin: Prelude to the Throne by Robin Maxwell (✬✬✬✬)


This book is a must-read for all Elizabethan fans and historians who feel there is a missing link in Elizabeth’s life. Robin Maxwell has helped put the pieces together for me and now Elizabeth appears like a whole new, different person. Her depth in character, her choices in life, her destiny and her ruling have roots from a far deeper place. I understand her so much better.

5. The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto (✬✬)


 I could not tell if the characters were embroiled as terrorists or as citizens trying to survive terrorism. That is a pretty big gap in understanding! Neither the place nor the characters were developed to make me care.

6. The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny by Sandra Worth (✬✬✬✬)


Sandra Worth is an amazing storyteller, especially in this historical setting. I felt as if I were right there with each character. She knows how to put you in each setting and feel the surroundings. As I’m a huge fan of anything Kings and Queens from England and Scotland, Worth did not disappoint in telling a very intriguing and controversial viewpoint of Richard III and how he came to be King. It will challenge your perception of history and leave you in wonderment about this fascinating man and his family.

7. The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum (✬✬✬✬)


The Opposite of Love, by Julie Buxbaum, is a terrific read. It is an emotional book that goes to the edges of feelings and relationships. At times humorous in its raw honesty, at times sad as her protagonist, Emily Haxby, struggles with discovering herself, one in which she is capable to put herself in a position to love, a position of vulnerability.


8. The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin (✬✬✬✬)


This book does a great job capturing the “feel” of old Istanbul - the dock workers, the booksellers, the kitchens and alleys. The plot itself is about what we want from a mystery - complex enough to be a puzzle, not so much so we are lost. It is fun, fast, and light.


9.  The Queen's Pleasure by Brandy Purdy (✬✬✬)


The story itself is a page turner, it is captivating. I love historical fiction from the Tudor times and I was not disappointed. This gives a great twist to the Elizabeth/Robert/Amy story. Letting us into the characters heads to see and feel the joy, hope, love, despair, and eventual demise.

10.  The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares (✬✬)


The Last Summer (of You and Me) did not start very good for me. Until 50% I had a hard time even focusing on the story. I am not sure why. Something about the way it was written did not keep my attention even when I was actively reading it. I kept finding myself thinking of other things. Then around halfway through I could focus on the story. The story itself is I did not like it.