Vlad: The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys – Book Review

Jun 032011

Vlad: The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks

Five years after the death of Vlad Dracula, the Turks are encroaching more and more on Christian lands. If only the Order of the Dragon had not been discredited when Vlad was, it could still serve as a tool of Crusade for Christendom. In an effort to rehabilitate both Vlad and the Order of the Dragon, the three people who best knew him have been brought to one of his former castles to make confession on his behalf, telling Vlad’s story from his captivity with the Turks through the height of his power and cruelty, on to the time of his discrediting.

Vlad: The Last Confessions is the certainly the story of the ‘real’ Dracula, but more than that, it is a story of how history is written and warped to fit the needs of the victors:

The listeners had been fashioning their own Vlad, according to their needs. For Petru it was simple. he wanted the man who built the castle he commanded to be a hero; more, a Wallachian hero. He had heard of a time of justice, order, strength in his land. Of the smiting of Christ’s foes. He wanted that time again.-p. 69

At one time it was expedient for both the Turks and Hungarians to paint Vlad as a monster, but Vlad: The Last Confession posits a time when it may have been necessary for other European Christians to try to clear his name. The truth will never exonerate Vlad entirely, he was by no means a benevolent ruler, but it does shed a light on his motivations, which may have been more complex than cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

So laughed, the sound harsh. “So I have become a tale to amuse fat burghers over their suppers, and to hush their children with terror when they will not sleep,” He lifted his goblet, drank, set it down. “All I did, all the measures I took for Wallachia, against thieves and traitors and Infidels, come to this.” He jabbed a finger at the pamphlet. “Me, reduced to a blood-sucking monster.” -p. 327

The device of telling Vlad’s story through those who knew him best worked very well. In practice it meant that most of Vlad’s story could be told as a seamless narrative. The impression is that all three confidants are telling the story in an integrated fashion, picking up where another left off, coming back to the scene in the castle only when exposition is needed. Some of the scenes of war and violence got a bit old after awhile, but it would have been difficult to avoid them, as they were a very significant part of Vlad’s life.

Overall, Vlad: The Last Confession was an interesting and engaging look at the life of Vlad Dracula and how history is shaped by political needs. Recommended.

For a more in-depth discussion of the book and Humphreys’s inspiration for it, please check out my interview with him on my podcast, What’s Old is New.

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Source: Publisher, for an episode of What’s Old is New.
* 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.

The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham – Book Review

Jan 122011

The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham
Published by Sourcebooks

Along with another French-born woman, Isabella the She-Wolf of France, Margaret of Anjou is probably one of the most hated queens of English history. Frequently referred to as the ‘French bitch’ in practically every War of the Roses book I have ever read, she is finally getting the chance to tell her own side of the story in Susan Higginbotham’s “The Queen of Last Hopes.” Quite a story it is, too, having to defend her mad husband’s throne and her son’s birthright against usurping royal cousins.

Higginbotham has certainly matured in her prose since her first book, “The Traitor’s Wife.” I think that her plotting has improved as well, “The Queen of Last Hopes” kept a good pace over the entire 320 odd pages. I will also say for Higginbotham, that she does a fabulous job presenting her subject in a realistic and sympathetic manner. I have always hated Margaret of Anjou as she appears in works of historical fiction, but Higginbotham made me examine the circumstances surrounding her infamy, which were really very sympathetic. Most of the War of the Roses fiction lately has a decidedly Yorkist slant to it and starts with or after the deaths on the battlefield of Edward IV’s father and older brother, which tends to elicit sympathy for Edward’s cause, but going back farther to examine the events leading up to the war has given me some pause in my own Yorkist leanings. Although, if you’re interested, I’m still not really pro-Lancaster because their reign started with the murder of another anointed ruler. I am not a scholar, though, these are just my personal thoughts.

Of course, any book that makes someone reexamine considered beliefs is, in some senses at least, a good one, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily unequivocally good. The greatest strength of “The Queen of Last Hopes” was the fully fleshed out character of Margaret, which is why it was so disappointing to see Higginbotham weakening the book by letting other characters narrate from time to time. Over the course of the book, four different men, including Henry VI and their son, Edward, were given chapters to narrate. Some of them received but one, some of them narrated multiple chapters. Unfortunately, this was not done with any particularly great style. Perhaps if their chapters had been at more regular intervals and of more regular lengths, and if the transitions from man to man had been done in a way to add to instead of detract from the book’s structure, it could have worked. As it was, however, I found the men’s chapters to be at best a distraction from Margaret, who was truly at the heart of the book. At worst, they were lazy storytelling, taking chapters where it was simply most convenient to impart events which Margaret did not witness firsthand.

Overall I mostly enjoyed the book and would recommend it to those looking to experience this familiar story from a Lancastrian point of view, but I am disappointed that it was not as strong as it could have been.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

Source: Publisher.
* 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.

The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory – Book Review

Aug 012010

The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory
Published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

One of the only heirs of the Lancaster line of the royal family, Margaret Beauford is a very important young girl, but still a powerless one. She is utterly convinced that she has a vocation and desperately wants to be a nun. As a young lady with royal blood in a time when the king is childless and perhaps slightly crazy, Margaret is not to have the luxury of choosing her own fate and going into a convent. Instead, she is expected to breed, to produce a son for the Lancaster line. Not only that, neither she nor her family have any say in who she is to marry. At twelve she is wedded to King Henry VI’s half-brother, the twenty-something Edmund Tudor. At thirteen, days after the death of her husband, Margaret gives birth to a son, Henry Tudor, and has a vision that he will one day be King of England. Suddenly, Margaret has a new vocation from God: seeing her son crowned.

Gregory’s “The Other Boleyn Girl” is the novel that brought me to historical fiction in college, but much of her work after that went downhill, in my opinion. In fact, I disliked “The Other Queen,” so much (after purchasing it in hardcover), that I nearly swore her off completely. I’m glad I decided to give her another chance with her new series, The Cousin’s War. I thought that the first book in the series, “The White Queen,” was perhaps her best book since “The Other Boleyn Girl.”

“The Red Queen,” I think, is even better. Gregory still suffers from a bit of the repetitiveness that she showcased in “The White Queen,” but I think it came off better, and flowed more naturally in this book. Yes, Margaret did express her belief in her religious vocation ad nauseum in the beginning of the book in particular, but she was a very head strong young preteen and teenager, so it fit with her character. In fact, she was obnoxiously headstrong and self-righteous throughout the entire book. The fact that Gregory kept me enjoying “The Red Queen” as much as I enjoyed “The White Queen” with its much more sympathetic protagonist is what makes me say that this is actually the stronger book.

If you gave up on Gregory after some of her weaker Tudor books, try her Cousin’s War series. You can really start with either “The White Queen” or “The Red Queen,” but I recommend that you give it a try.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the publisher.
* 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.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – Book Review

May 242010

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

If you don’t already know what this book is about, there is a good chance this isn’t the sort of book you would like, because this has got to be hands-down the most talked about historical fiction novel of the past 12 months: Henry VIII’s court from Thomas Cromwell’s point of view.

Thomas Cromwell. Not, perhaps, the most sympathetic character from Henry VIII’s reign, and there were an awful lot of unsympathetic characters running around that court. In most works of historical fiction, Cromwell is vilified, detested; he is a horrible, horrible man who craves naught but power and influence. Honestly, doesn’t sound like the sort of man that I would like to read a 600 page book about, whose head I would want to be in for that long.

But Mantel does something special with Cromwell in “Wolf Hall.” She humanizes him, and actually makes him sympathetic. Honestly, I’m not even sure how she did it. Although we are somewhat in Cromwell’s head throughout the story, her narration is still in third person and somehow everything seems a little on the distant side – I felt almost as if I was watching everything take place through a pane of frosted glass. And yet, I felt that I understood him, that I cared what he thought and felt.

One of the main things that everyone has talked about with this book is the fact that it is a difficult read. In particular, Mantel almost always refers to Cromwell simply as ‘he’ and, yes, when he’s talking to other men, that gets very confusing. And really, some of the passages are just plain dense, and a bit hard to get through, in the second and third sections particularly.

But then, in the second half of the book, it just all came together for me. I was completely drawn into the story by that point, I was used to Mantel’s writing, and it all just flowed. I loved it. LOVED it. I’ve never read Tudor fiction like this, I’ve never seen Cromwell as a character like this and, despite early difficulties, I absolutely adored it.

If you love literary fiction and historical fiction and are willing to put a little work into your books, I highly recommend “Wolf Hall.”

A note on how I read this: I actually read “Wolf Hall” over about six weeks, reading a section each weekend to discuss on Monday with a friend. Although the discussions petered out, I think that reading it like this really worked well for me. Trying to read the entire thing at once might have burned me out, but having it as my weekend read with other books during the week always left me wanting more, particularly towards the end when I got really into it.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*