Susan Higginbotham (1)

4.5 stars

Prior to starting this book I had never heard of Mary Surratt (the first woman executed by the U.S. government). Like most Americans I am familiar with the story of John Wilkes Booth shooting President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's theater. However I was entirely unfamiliar with the other cast of characters the U.S. government charged with conspiracy in the President's assassination.

Higginbotham creates an informative, engaging, and emotional story about Mary Surratt -- a Washington, show more D.C. widow who runs a boarding house visited at times by Confederate sympathizers, including Booth and others later charged in the assassination conspiracy. The tale is told through the perspective of both Mary, and one of her boarders, Nora Fitzpatrick. Readers gain a vivid sense of history, and get to know the characters through their narratives.

While the story was engaging throughout, there were times about a third of the way in where I thought to myself -- "let's get *on* with it!" However, the slow build up is needed to fully introduce and flesh out characters who will be very relevant later on in the story. Once the narrative really gets going, I didn't want it to stop. I also found myself deeply moved -- even though I knew the ending prior to starting the book. (It's historical fiction, so in this case one can't help but know the ending).

This book would make a fabulous choice for a book group as Mary Surratt's choices -- as well as her guilt or innocence -- leave much room for discussion.

I will just add the following as a closing thought. My older daughter jokingly aired the student's lament the other night at dinner, in this case about her history lessons: "When am I ever going to have to use this stuff?" I told her, while the dates, facts, and figures aren't the most important things to remember (once the test is over), the "morals of the story" are. Whether it's 1865 after the assassination of a beloved President or 2001 after a heinous attack on innocent civilians, we must remember in our grief, sorrow, and righteous anger that punishing scapegoats isn't the answer.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review (I should note that while I was provided a galley, I ended up listening to the audio version of this book). show less

This is an engrossing novel about the life and struggles of this Medieval queen, wife to the Lancastrian King Henry VI, battling to maintain her weak husband's throne against the Yorkist threat. I must say it is quite refreshing to read a novel of the Wars of the Roses set from a firmly pro-Lancastrian perspective, as the pro-Yorkist point of view has tended to be more popular with authors who write in the first person and/or take sides. Politics aside, I liked at a human level the show more sympathetic portrayal of Henry VI, a man beset my mental health problems and unfit to be a warrior king, but a very decent and humane man (he founded Eton College, originally as a school for boys from poorer background). Most of the novel is told from Margaret's first person perspective, which does have the disadvantage that dramatic battles usually happen "off stage" and are recounted in retrospect by variously victorious or defeated survivors. That said, some of the chapters are recounted from the point of view of male characters, such as Somerset, Prince Edward and Henry VI himself, but this gives rise to the paradox that these characters are narrating episodes where they die at the end - so how could they be narrating them? In a dramatic sense, I guess this does not matter too much, but it jarred a bit with me, and the episodes could have perhaps transferred to the third person before their denouements. This is a bit of a nitpick, though - this was a very good read. show less

Kate Woodville was only a young girl when the Yorkist King Edward IV married her sister Elizabeth in secret. But that marriage, and her own to the Lancastrian Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham will eventually plunge Kate into the middle of the struggles of the Wars of the Roses, especially given Harry's close friendship with Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

Susan Higginbotham does an excellent job at portraying the conflicting loyalties of the Wars of the Roses, and despite my relative show more unfamiliarity with the conflict, I was never completely lost. That said, I did often find it difficult to keep all the Margarets, Edwards, and Henrys apart, not to mention to remember whom they were related to and why it all mattered. This is, to an extent, inevitable given the complicated history involved, and Higginbotham generally included explanations in dialogue or inner monologue to help the reader figure things out. Especially the main strands of the story surrounding Harry and Kate are quite clear - but if you feel the need to understand the reason behind the various executions and battles, you should make sure you have some background material to hand.

While I'm generally not a huge fan of first-person narratives outside of a diary/epistolary format, I didn't find the POV distracting in The Stolen Crown. Higginbotham also made sure that the perspective wasn't as limited by including two point of view characters - Kate and Harry. Given how much of the history of the Wars of the Roses takes place on battlefields, I thought this was a strong move.

To be honest, I wasn't terribly fond of Harry. I thought he was a largely realistic character complete with flaws, frustrations and divided loyalties, and I enjoyed the blossoming love between Kate and Harry in the early days of their marriage. But once Harry has grown into a man, he still seems naive and too easily led. There are a few moments in Harry's story that suggest a strong love for Richard - which could explain his wilful blindness regarding the Princes in the Tower and make his subsequent decisions more heart-wrenching, but I'm not sure that I believed in the depth of his emotion.

One of the hazards of first-person narratives is that it's much more difficult to pull off subtle/suppressed emotions. If I was to believe that Harry was in love with Richard, I needed more evidence since we were given so much insight into his head. I see the argument that Harry was in denial and was repressing his feelings and confused - given his deep affection for Kate. But again, I think to play with such subtlety, a third-person narration would have been more effective.

This, of course, leads us to the ever-fascinating (and ever-controversial) character of Richard of Gloucester. Higginbotham's Richard is unceasingly political - he's always manipulating people and twisting facts to shape events to his liking. He's ruthless towards his political opponents and thinks nothing of ruining a reputation or taking a life if he deems it necessary for the succession. Partially this can be ascribed to his learning from his brother's ill-fated attempts at mercy and compassion, but Richard comes across as inhumanly unemotional.

Perhaps Higginbotham's Richard suffers coming relatively close behind what I thought was a masterful portrayal of the man in all his complexities in The Tudor Rose, but I couldn't see the Richard that inspired such devotion in Harry Stafford, nor the man who was so beloved of his subjects in York, nor the man so passionate about his wife Anne. So Richard didn't steal the show in Higginbotham's The Stolen Crown, but perhaps the novel would have been better for it if he had.

Susan Higginbotham's The Stolen Crown is a very readable and comprehensible look at the muddle that was The Wars of the Roses. I learned a great deal about the conflict and Edward IV and his family that I had never heard of. Particularly interesting, to my mind, were the attempts to prove Edward's marriage invalid - I saw portents of the future there! I enjoyed reading about Edward IV (who was shown as a charmingly larger than life character) and the Woodvilles. I'd recommend The Stolen Crown to someone interested in seeing what came before the Tudors.

Also posted at A Hoyden's Look at Literature.

FTC Disclosure: I received a free copy for review from the publisher. show less

What a fabulous character Eleanor le Despenser makes! She would normally be a bit-part character in the story of Edward II, but here she is centre stage in all the drama that unfolds. Eleanor marries Hugh le Despenser, who follows in the footsteps of Piers Gaveston as the favourite of the king, in the realm of politics, and in the bed chamber. But Hugh and Eleanor, still have a strong marriage, and many children. But one of the great strengths of this novel is that Eleanor's story continues show more well after the demise of her husband Hugh. She is imprisoned with her children, and later is remarried, but claimed as the wife of another man!
This book shows a great amount of research into the people of the time. It is great to see one of the characters on the side lines of stories brought to life in such a way. This is great historical fiction! There would be so many more stories like this to tell thoughout history, and I hope that more authors will seek to bring with characters into a spotlight of their own. show less