Medium – Book
About the Book – Cecily Neville is the wife of Richard Duke of York, during the time just before the Wars of the Roses. The book starts off with her as a young wife of 16, watching the burning of Joan of Arc, and then follows through her life with Richard, the births of her twelve children (seven of whom survived) and the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, with her taking control of London whilst her son (the eventual Edward IV) rides out against the armies of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. Throughout the book, we see her using her amazing intellect to advise her husband and to cover for him when his schemes go awry. We see her all encompassing love for her husband and children, and her hatred for those she sees getting in the way of her dynasty.
My Rating – 4/5
My Thoughts – This is the last book of my reading challenge! I am going to carry on reading, but feel quite chuffed with myself that I have managed to read 75 books this year already! This book was one I picked out just for the cover, to be honest, and a bit of the blurb. However, I hadn’t realised that the book was about the Wars of the Roses, so it was a bit of a surprise when I actually ended up reading it. But, I really enjoyed it. The early part of the Wars of the Roses is not something I know a lot about. I tend to go for Tudor or later when I am reading, so to read something that is set more in the Medieval period was really interesting. I am really glad that the author included ancestry trees in the book as I think I may have got completely lost with all the similar-sounding names!
The character of Cecily is beautifully drawn. She is a woman who moves within her sphere (and outside of it) to influence the people around her, and head towards her goal – placing her husband, or her son on the throne of England. She is clever, witty and brave, a woman who is willing to do anything in order to ensure that her family are protected. Her husband is generally quite brave, but also a bit of an idiot in places, and Cecily has to spend quite a bit of time getting him out of trouble and protecting him. I’d not read much of her, but I do hope that this is the first of two books – the book finishes when she is in her forties and I know she lived until her eighties, so much more to find out about!
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