Well I confess I'm not actually finished reading this book yet, but I'm in the last stretch of it so I thought I'd review anyway.

I think basically the overall problem with this book is it feels like several different books kind of got mashed into one story. The beginning seems like it should some kind of "maybe magic, maybe mundane" plot, with scrying and visions of the future, and a mysterious forest woman teaching an orphan about healing herbs and stuff. Then we have a sort of fish out of water plot, as the orphan becomes a body servant in a well-to-do household, and must deal with jealousies from other servants, and unwanted attention from the son of the Master of the house. Then we get a court intrigue plot, wherein our heroine is now body servant to the Queen, and has to deal with yet more jealousies from her fellow servants, and worse - or better - unwanted attention from the King! And then it gets kind of ridiculous from there.

One of the more ridiculous things is the constant comments about the heroine. From the beginning we know that despite being poor, she's oddly beautiful, and has a grace about her like she's a member of the nobility. As the book goes on, we get more frequent mentions of how stunningly beautiful she is, and so humble! I don't mind this initially, but the part of the book I'm in now seems to be almost entirely people saying "Wow, she's so beautiful! The most beautiful woman in the room! Wow!" and it's getting boring. People are just fawning over her constantly, meanwhile the king is off trying to stop a rebellion and that barely even gets mentioned.

I can't speak to the historical inaccuracies of the book, because I personally didn't notice them. I'm not an expert of this time period, and if you aren't either, you shouldn't be bothered by any of those particular details.

If you're a fan of Elizabeth Woodville (or Wydville, or whatever), look elsewhere. She does not come off very well in this book. I've certainly seen her characterized worse, and the book does say part of her temperament is her being uncomfortable due to her pregnancies, but wow, she's awful. It does feel a bit like the author was purposely making Elizabeth come off badly so we'd better root for the heroine and Edward to get together, because them having known each other a whole 10 minutes, it must be true love, I guess!

The plot twist regarding the truth of the heroine's birth, and the fallout from it, is... well, I'd say a bit on the silly side. I don't mind that part much, though.

Overall, I feel like the first part of the book - which feels a bit like Downton Abbey but in the 1460s and a little more violent - deserves perhaps a 5, while the latter part of the book - which feels extremely tedious and padded out with repetitive scenes wherein we're told the protagonist is lovely yet so unassuming and humble and kind - would deserve perhaps a 2, so I averaged it out to 3 stars here.

Unless the end of this book is truly horrible, I'm intending to read at least the second book in the trilogy, and I hope that's an improvement, or else I won't be reading the third book. Bu I've already purchased both books anyway.

Edit: Have finished the book. Definitely the ending is a disappointment compared to the intriguing beginning. There's no real build-up or explanation for why Edward is so in love with Anne, Anne adjusts to her new identity entirely too quickly to make much sense, and everyone around her adjusts way too quickly to it as well, and the repetition of people commenting on how elegant and beautiful yet so kind and humble Anne is really gets annoying towards the last 1/4 of the book. I'll be reading the next book in the series, but I hope it's better. ( )

I really liked 'The Innocent'. It was a light read but enjoyable with just enough intrigue and romance to keep it moving and I wanted to keep turning pages to see what would happen next. I really liked Anne too but at times I feel she was just a little bit too 'nice'. There's nothing wrong with being nice, but at times I wished she had a little bit more dimension to her.

Sometimes I felt that her beauty was overplayed though. Everyone she meets, and I mean EVERYONE, is struck dumb by her beauty and even if someone is in a foul murderous mood, one glance at Anne and they're turned into a blithering idiot who is willing to do her bidding no matter what. It's a bit overdone.

I'd recommend the book though, especially if you like a good costume drama, it's easy to get into and as long as you're not put off by a few rough s e x scenes, it's a good book.

I'm looking forward to the second and third books in the series. ( )

15 year old Anne is being taken by her foster mother to work as a servant in merchant's house. She has good knowledge of herbs and after Anne saves the merchant’s wife, her knowledge brings her to the attention of the court's doctor.The doctor brings Anne to court to help the queen giving birth to their first child. While being there she attracts the king’s eye and discovers the truth about her parents.

Oh boy, where am I gonna start? First of all, if you’re gonna read this for historical accurancy, don’t bother.

My first problem is with Anne. She is just too perfect. Every man falls for her, even the king who is known for his many fleeting affairs just falls in love with after few glances. Of course she can heal better than the doctors, evade the merchant’s son who loves to spend his time raping the servant girls, staying annoyingly innocent and being nice to everyone.

In the beginning of the book the merchan’t son, Piers, has some rather gross sex scenes with this girl which I could have lived unknowing. And we also learn that Edward IV finds watching other people having sex erotic and appearantly so does Anne after peeking from the door where Hastings is with some laundress *insert eye roll here*

And the truth about her parents? Her father is none other than Henry VI. Because he’s known to be chasing girls between praying and his bouts of madness... And it’s rather understandable that after Margaret finds out the girl is pregnant she tries to assasinate her. This whole thing was little too much on the melodramatic side for my liking.

And after Anne finds out about her father, she rather instantly finds maturity and kind of a royal bearing. And after months of evading Edward she jumps to his bed after finding who she is. Because it’s much more logical doing adultery when you are royal bastard than a mere servant...
And why illegitimate daughter might be such a big threat to Edward is totally beyond me.

But I liked William Hastings. And I think that’s the first time so there was at least one thing I liked ( )

The year is 1450, a dangerous time in medieval Britain. Civil unrest is at its peak and the legitimacy of the royal family is suspect. Meanwhile, deep in the forests of western England, a baby is born. Powerful forces plot to kill both mother and child, but somehow the newborn girl survives. Her name is Anne.

Fifteen years later, England emerges into a fragile but hopeful new age, with the charismatic young King Edward IV on the throne. Anne, now a young peasant girl, joins the household of a wealthy London merchant. Her unusual beauty provokes jealousy, lust, and intrigue, but Anne has a special quality that saves her: a vast knowledge of healing herbs. News of her extraordinary gift spreads, and she is called upon to save the ailing queen. Soon after, Anne is moved into the palace, where she finds her destiny with the man who will become the greatest love of her life -- the king himself.

My Thoughts:

I started reading this book and found I was enjoying the book. I felt it was very much in the vain of early Philippa Gregory what with the historical theme and I didn’t mind the bodice ripping at all.

As the book went on I felt it was becoming a bit of a yarn and I felt myself losing interest and found I was getting rather bored with it. Anne was annoying and I was fed up with being told how beautiful she was and how all the male characters whom came across her wanted her.

This isn’t the best book out there and altough Philippa Gregory can be a bit repeatative she is a far better author if you want to read historical. I don’t think that there is enough in this book for me to want to read the other two in the series. ‘The Wise Woman’ by Philippa Gregory is such a better read. ( )

This is the first book in a trilogy, set in England in the 1400s. A young girl named Anne – born in dangerous and mysterious circumstances – come to work as a servant at the home of wealthy Mathew Cuttifer and his wife Margaret. After tragedy strikes at the house, Anne finds herself working at the Royal Palace for the Queen Elizabeth Wydeville. But King Edward covets Anne for himself, and although Anne knows that it is wrong, she cannot but help feeling irresistably drawn to the King. However, danger lurks around every corner, and when secrets from the past come to light, Anne realises that she could be in very real danger…

This is definitely a book which I found it hard to make up my mind about. On the plus side, the writing flowed easily and it was very ‘readable’. It was also packed with historical detail (but beware that there is a lot of historical inaccuracy – Anne for example is not based on a real character at all), and the parts where the hair and clothing fashions of the day were mentioned, were fascinating. The story itself was also pacey and kept me interested.

However, I found it hard to invest in any of the characters, most of whom seemed two dimensional at best. Anne is supposed to be a stunningly beautiful girl, but it got a bit tedious when this fact was constantly rammed down the reader’s throat – every single male character who laid eyes on her was instantly transfixed by her beauty, and this point was emphasised throughout the story. She was just too twee and perfect to be a heroine who I could really invest in. King Edward seemed to come across as a caricature, and Elizabeth Wydeville was portrayed as the wicked witch of the west!

The other problem was the writing, which was sometimes rather clunky, with grammatical mistakes and lazy sentence construction. However, this was not such a huge problem in itself (and should have been picked up by an editor). What was a bigger problem were the (thankfully) occasional pages of utter smut, which added nothing whatsoever to the book and only served to slow the story down. I’m not a prude and have no problem with sex in novels, but I do get annoyed when gratuitous sex scenes appear for no real reason. They were fairly few and far between, but I would caution readers who don’t like such scenes to approach with caution.

Despite the criticism, I’m not sorry that I took the time to read this book, as the storyline itself was worth reading – I would consider reading the next two books in the series, but possibly not for quite a while. If you’re a fan of historical fiction (with the emphasis on fiction). I’d probably recommend the book, but if like me you’re a fan of Philippa Gregory and are expecting something similar with this book, you might be disappointed. ( )