Beth F
bermudaonion (Kathy)
Sandy
Stephanie
Trisha
The King’s Mistress by Emma Campion
Alice knows she is lucky when she is lucky when her father chooses Janyn Perrers for her to wed. Although he is a good deal older than she is, she finds he attractive and he has never been anything but gentle and kind towards her. For awhile, they have a lovely, happy life together, until it becomes clear that he and his family have a dangerous secret involving the Dowager Queen Isabella. When Isabella passes away, Alice ends up under the protection of King Edward III and Queen Philippa, only to become Edward’s long-time mistress, reviled by much of the country.
First of all, let me just do a little cheer that “The King’s Mistress” is English historical fiction that is not about the Tudors, the War of the Roses, or Eleanor of Aquitaine. Hooray! Originality!
Alice Perrers is a fascinating woman, and I am glad that Campion decided to take her on as a subject for this novel. A merchant’s daughter, she neither wanted nor expected to spend any time with the royal family, only to end up as a royal mistress and mother to three of the king’s children. Of course, the higher someone is raised, the more enmity they attract (Tudor fans, think Wolsey and Cromwell). Indeed, Alice ends up vilified by many of those around her, accused of taking advantage of the aging king in his growing senility during their final years together.
Although the beginning was a bit slow, I thought that Campion’s writing was quite good. I thought that, overall, she let Alice’s story unfold very well and very naturally. The only minor thing that annoyed me was Alice’s italicized musings at the beginning of each of the four sections. They all ended with “When had I a choice to be other than I was?” Yes, there was a certain degree to which Alice’s fate was really being decided for her by other people, but I disliked that strong current of helplessness from Alice in these sections, particularly because I found her to be a rather strong character in the book as a whole, working for what she felt was right or what she wanted whenever it was possibly in her somewhat powerless position.
Despite a couple of minor flaws, this was a great work of historical fiction, and I would highly recommend it to people looking for something other than the same old Tudor and War of the Roses historical novels.
Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*
I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour. Check out some of the other tour hosts for more reviews. Links go to the host’s site, not to their specific review.
Tuesday, July 6th: Life in Review
Wednesday, July 7th: Luxury Reading
Thursday, July 8th: Life is a Patchwork Quilt
Friday, July 9th: Hist-Fic Chick
Monday, July 12th: The Tome Traveller
Tuesday, July 13th: Novel Whore
Wednesday, July 14th: Rundpinne
Thursday, July 15th: Stiletto Storytime
Thursday, July 22nd: Ask Miss A
Thursday, July 22nd: The Book Faery Reviews
Monday, July 26th: Chaotic Compendiums
Monday, July 26th: The Feminist Review
Wednesday, July 28th: Devourer of Books
Monday, August 2nd: S. Krishna’s Books
Wednesday, August 4th: Peeking Between the Pages
Friday, August 6th: Historical-Fiction.com
Thursday, August 12th: Enchanted by Josephine
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.Related posts:
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I guess we all have moments of weakness! I do prefer my females strong so I can see where that would have been annoying. It is refreshing to see historical fiction that covers something besides those top five topics!
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I ordered this one last year from the UK and thought it was pretty good – and it is nice to read some lesser well known people. Vanora Bennett is also releasing a book next month about Alice (so far UK only) called The People’s Queen.
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devourerofbooks Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Oh no, Alice is going to be the new Eleanor! Ha!
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You’ve made me curious about the dangerous secret.
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I firmly believe we always have a choice even if the choices aren’t equally ‘good’, so I can see how that would be quite annoying.
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devourerofbooks Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Luckily it was just a in there 4 times and I could forget about it during the rest of the book!
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I enjoyed this one too and was thrilled it had nothing to do with the Tudors! I agree, there were a few flaws, but overall I think it was a good read.
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Alice Perrer sounds really interesting. I love originality in a historical fiction novel. This sounds really good to me!
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I really, really enjoyed this book, especially because I read it right after CAPTIVE QUEEN, and you know what I thought of that one! I didn’t really notice the musings, but I can understand why they bothered you.
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I was originally planning on skipping this book….until I read what you have to say about it. You are singlehandedly responsible for changing my mind (no pressure, LOL).
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I’m always looking for good HF. Thanks.
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I’m going to get this book
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