Innocent Traitor

BONUS: This edition contains an

ISBN 0345494857
(ISBN:13 9780345494856)

excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn.

I am now a condemned traitor . . . I am to die when I have hardly begun to live.

Historical expertise marries page-turning fiction in Alison Weir’s enthralling debut novel, breathing new life into one of the most significant and tumultuous periods of the English monarchy. It is the story of Lady Jane Grey–“the Nine Days’ Queen” –a fifteen-year-old girl who unwittingly finds herself at the center of the religious and civil unrest that nearly toppled the fabled House of Tudor during the sixteenth century.

The child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she is merely a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, Jane Grey was born during the harrowingly turbulent period between Anne Boleyn’s beheading and the demise of Jane’s infamous great-uncle, King Henry VIII. With the premature passing of Jane’ s adolescent cousin, and Henry’s successor, King Edward VI, comes a struggle for supremacy fueled by political machinations and lethal religious fervor.

Unabashedly honest and exceptionally intelligent, Jane possesses a sound strength of character beyond her years that equips her to weather the vicious storm. And though she has no ambitions to rule, preferring to immerse herself in books and religious studies, she is forced to accept the crown, and by so doing sets off a firestorm of intrigue, betrayal, and tragedy.

Alison Weir uses her unmatched skills as a historian to enliven the many dynamic characters of this majestic drama. Along with Lady Jane Grey, Weir vividly renders her devious parents; her much-loved nanny; the benevolent Queen Katherine Parr; Jane’s ambitious cousins; the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, who will stop at nothing to seize the throne; and the Protestant and future queen Elizabeth. Readers venture inside royal drawing rooms and bedchambers to witness the power-grabbing that swirls around Lady Jane Grey from the day of her birth to her unbearably poignant death. Innocent Traitor paints a complete and compelling portrait of this captivating young woman, a faithful servant of God whose short reign and brief life would make her a legend.

402 pages

Published, February 27th 2007

(Ballantine Books)

Warning: there are some scenes of child abuse. Please seek professional help if you or someone you know has been in a similar situation.

First Impression

set in 1st person Innocent Traitor begins with a small prologue set on 14th November 1553, after trial of lady Jane Grey as are an in the quote, 'My palace is now My prison '.

From here it leads to Leicestershire 1537, with the viewpoint of Frances Brandon, the Marchioness of Dorset, Jane's mother, who after 2 previous still births gives birth to a daughter "healthy and vigorous". 

Both Frances and Henry are referred to as being ambitious, and greatly disappointed that she is a girl, after wanting a son.

My Rating ⭐

For me Innocent Traitor was a slow paces account based on the viewpoints of different women surrounding Jane Grey instead of giving her a strong voice Jane's character got lost behind other characters. 

I decided to DNF on page 49, after reading the Innocent Traitor seemed to bed together and dragged on. From Jane's births it moved to Jane Seymour give birth which is irrelevant and pointless in a book that is supposed to be about Jane Grey. I was also found reading about how Jane was treated from 3 very distressing.

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The Dutch House

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to

ISBN 0062963678
(ISBN13: 9780062963673)

begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

337 pages

Published September 24th 2919

(Harper)

First Impression

Set in the 1st person The Dutch House is in three parts, giving the life story of a boy called Danny, who is 8 when he is introduced to us...

As an audience we are taken on the journey as Danny explains his experiences and relationships with those around him through his life.

My Rating ⭐⭐

I was looking forward to reading The Dutch House (May 2020 BOTM), but after a while it seemed to fall a bit flat. 

Upon reading the first 5 chapters I felt really sorry for Danny and his sister, Maeve as the have a strained relationship with their father especially after their mother left.

After their father remarries to Angela, who has two daughters herself both Danny and Maeve are pushed even further away and rely on eachother.

Some of the things I found issue with it the fact that it seems more like I was reading a time jump as Danny was 8 then a teenager. Through this I struggled to piece together a idea of what I was reading. 

As soon as I hit chapter 9 I felt I could push through any more as I was underwhelmed and quite frankly I was lost.

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"But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we're not seeing it as the people we were, we're seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.”

“Disappointment comes from expectation,”

A Good Marriage

Big Little Lies meets Presumed Innocent in this

ISBN 0062367684
(ISBN13: 9780062367686)

riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, in which a woman’s brutal murder reveals the perilous compromises some couples make—and the secrets they keep—in order to stay together.
Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.
No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.
The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.
As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Grace Hall private school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.

400 pages

Published May 5th 2020

(Harper)

First Impression

Set in the 1st person, A Good Marriage tells the story of Lizze and Amanda with a manuscript of the jury.

One evening whilst working late at the office, Lizzie receives a call from a friend, Zach, who after coming home from a "adult party" finds his wife, Amanda dead and has been arrested on suspicion of her death. 

After agreeing reluctantly to represent him 

My Rating ⭐⭐

A Good Marriage is BOTM for May 2020. 

So I was instantly expecting the book to have the WOW factor even though it was a slow paced book.

However, it failed to grip me in a meaningful way, which is a disappointment when there was a lot of 5 star reviews. 

I was not keen on Amanda's character and felt no connection to any of the characters. The writing was sloppy and all over place, making I it difficult to pick the plot back up after putting down... The court testimony seem pointless and irrelevant leading me to at times having to re-read previous pages.

After reading 100 pages I had to give up as I couldn't stand to read anymore.

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Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World

Many are familiar with the story of

ISBN 0345521366
(ISBN13: 9780345521361)

the much-married King Henry VIII of England and the celebrated reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I. But it is often forgotten that the life of the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother and Elizabeth’s grandmother, spanned one of England’s most dramatic and perilous periods. Now New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir presents the first modern biography of this extraordinary woman, whose very existence united the realm and ensured the survival of the Plantagenet bloodline.
Her birth was greeted with as much pomp and ceremony as that of a male heir. The first child of King Edward IV, Elizabeth enjoyed all the glittering trappings of royalty. But after the death of her father; the disappearance and probable murder of her brothers—the Princes in the Tower; and the usurpation of the throne by her calculating uncle Richard III, Elizabeth found her world turned upside-down: She and her siblings were declared bastards.
As Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, was dying, there were murmurs that the king sought to marry his niece Elizabeth, knowing that most people believed her to be England’s rightful queen. Weir addresses Elizabeth’s possible role in this and her covert support for Henry Tudor, the exiled pretender who defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth and was crowned Henry VII, first sovereign of the House of Tudor. Elizabeth’s subsequent marriage to Henry united the houses of York and Lancaster and signaled the end of the Wars of the Roses. For centuries historians have asserted that, as queen, she was kept under Henry’s firm grasp, but Weir shows that Elizabeth proved to be a model consort—pious and generous—who enjoyed the confidence of her husband, exerted a tangible and beneficial influence, and was revered by her son, the future King Henry VIII.
Drawing from a rich trove of historical records, Weir gives a long overdue and much-deserved look at this unforgettable princess whose line descends to today’s British monarch—a woman who overcame tragedy and danger to become one of England’s most beloved consorts.

572 pages

Published December 3rd 2013

(Ballantine Books)

First Impression

Alison Weir gives an outlined account of the life of Elizabeth of York, a woman who was seen as a crucial influence to the present British Monarchy. 

Through her book, Elizabeth of York, she highlights the decisions and influences of a important time in history and uses research to answer possibly some of the most controversial questions of the modern day.

My Rating ⭐

I felt that even though the book was suppose to be about Elizabeth of York it tended to be about everything else but her...

The prologue detailed information about the war of the roses, (also known as the Cousin's war).

From there Weir, gave information from her parents to Warwick, and Margaret Beaufort, sharing her marriage and her pregnancy of Henry VII.

I found that it was quite difficult to follow as the timeline seemed to be very random in one section Warwick had been killed by King Edward IV then it jumped to 1469 where Warwick was rebelling against Edward IV.

From the sections about Elizabeth, I was able to read I found that...In the year 1466, February 11th, Elizabeth, was born at Westminster, the first child between King Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville. 

Growing up she would have been aware that she was the daughter of the King, with a sense of her worldly importance, becoming use to travel at infancy.

At the age of 4, Elizabeth and her siblings, Mary and Cecily, were hurried in secrecy upstream to Westminster by their mother, who was reported 7 months pregnant, and maternal grandmother, after her father was forced to flee to the low countries, to be further reunited 5 months later, and for their security moved to the tower of London.

Unfortunately at chapter 2, I decided that it wasn't going to get any better and it would be within my best interest to stop reading, which is a shame because I really enjoy history and know a lot about the Tudor period.

I'm not sure if I can honestly recommend, Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir to anyone but I am sure that there will be someone who will find it a good read.

Quotes

The Distant Hours

A long lost letter arrives in the

ISBN 1439152780
(ISBN13: 9781439152782)

post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.
Morton once again enthralls readers with an atmospheric story featuring unforgettable characters beset by love and circumstance and haunted by memory, that reminds us of the rich power of storytelling.

562 pages

Published November 9th 2010

(Atria)

First Impression

Set in the 1st person The Distant Hours is categorised into five different parts telling the story of  Edie, her mother, and Jupiter Blythe. 

The prologue grabs you and pulls you in, by both feet. After which, starts in 1992 with a letter.

Edie's mother after receiving a letter from a past friend, Jupiter Blythe on a Sunday, and begins to recap of her life as a 12/13 year old child during the second world war.

My Rating ⭐⭐

As the story progresses we as the audience find out a lot more than expected...

But unfortunately I had a hard time getting a feel for the book and after trying to settle in to a rhythm, at 8 chapters having not made any head way, I had to call it quits.

I love the fact that it was descriptive and loved the prologue but I wasn't going to force myself to read.

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Swing Time

Two brown girls dream of  

ISBN 0241144159
(ISBN13: 9780241144152)

being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, about what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.

Dazzling energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we survive them. Moving from Northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time. 

453 pages

Published November 15th 2016 (Hamish Hamilton)

First Impression

The narrator comes across as a plain Jane her mother dressed them both as plainly as possible. Tracey is described as her mother's "striking accessory" with diamante everything, and expensive trainers.

My Rating ⭐

Set in the 1st person, Swing Time tells the story of the narrator and her friend, Tracey. Zadie Smith has sectioned of stages of the story into 7 separate parts.

In the first section the plot jumps from Tracey and the narrator meeting to church and then dancing. As a reader, I find myself baffled as it doesn't seem to have a flow it's just put together.

3 chapters in I had no other option than to put it as a "DNF". I just couldn't do it...from the blur it sounded like a book worth reading but I am so disappointed with how it is structured which is one of the reasons why I have to give it 1 star.

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