Customer Reviews

Less Fortunate Than Fair

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I got this book after reading cover notes that it pertained to Cecily Plantagenet. I wrongly assumed this to mean "Proud Cis," mother of Edward IV and Richard III, who lived a tragic life and is normally only tangentially mentioned in many works dealing with the Wars of the Roses. I was interested to read more of her story in particular. Unfortunately, the subject of this work is not THAT Cecily Plantagenet, but rather the woman of the same name who was the daughter of Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville. Little is known about the Cecily who is the subject of this book, but Ms. Wilson has concocted a wholly imaginary biography for her. In this one, Cecily falls in love with John of Gloucester, Richard III's illegitimate son.
there is zero historical support for this thesis, and Wilson does little with it. Although I appreciate that this novel attempts to cover ground ordinarily omitted from works about this cast of characters (Neville, York, Plantagenet), the book is so ordinary, the writing so mundane and the "history" basically supposition and guesswork, that I grew bored before the tale was done. I did note another book from the same year by the same author titled "The Lady Cicely." I assume this is the same work under a different title. This is more of a romance than history, and nothing out of the ordinary for all that.

This was the book that started my long career as an author. It is also the first of a trilogy about Cicely Planatagenet, the daughter of Edward IV of England. Her uncle was Richard III, for whom her elder sister, Elizabeth, formed a much more loving attachment than was acceptable. Cicely's life covered the reigns of three kings of England, the last being Henry VII, the Tudor who defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth. Her loves were as varied as these reigns, but happiness awaited her in the end.

I hope her story still inspires an interest in that period of English history.