Customer Reviews

Queen of Shadows: A Novel of Isabella, Wife of King Edward II

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I realize a historical fiction is fiction but usually the author does research and builds the fiction around the facts. I am not an expert and even I picked up on the inaccuracies (not just the dates, places and events but the customs, speech, dress, etc.)
I gave this book one star because of the historical figures she started with and the only good parts in this book are Isabella's interactions with Despenser. I can't say this would even be a good book if you like romance because the love scenes were not fantastic.
Over all this book is poorly written and I am not sure it's the writers fault or the editor. There's so many mistakes it's hard to read through it. The characters are weak, the plot is weak, details of the period are not that discriptive or all wrong. It's so unbelievable, it's comical. As I was reading this book, I thought if it became a movie it would be a cartoon.
If your looking for a good historical fiction, look for Sharon Kay Penman or Anya Seton or even Philippa Gregory.

This book sat in my to read stack for two years or so (ever since it was published) and I never got around to reading it. To admit a completely stupid emotion I even felt guilty for having it sit around for so long getting no attention from me. But regardless when I did pick it up and read it I was a little...stunned. Not because this was some fantastic novel that redefined my life or because it was the worst piece of trash ie ever read that left me attempting to scrub my brain with soap to get the bad words out of my head. Not I was stunned because a more mediocre novel I have never read.

I guess it's a good thing that the cover was beige because this whole novel was just.....bla. While apparently the plot is like, edge of your seat, biting your fingernails, peeing in your pants exciting, in reality it's dull. It doesn't even have the imagination to be confusing, it's just boring.

So Gwenith (in reality this should be called a book of Queen Isabella and Gwenith the random royal Welsh girl) had her whole family destroyed by Edward Longshanks during his campaign to get ride of the Welsh princes of Wales and had vowed to her dead grandmother to everything she can to get ride of the present Edward, Longshanks son. Being a lady of waiting to Queen Isabella she gets a chance when a Welsh knight pleads his master's case to her and asks that the queen might meet with his master, Mortimer.

Doesn't sound bad-well it is. On top of all of the historical inaccuracies (and there are soooo many-either this author did no research and went off of what she learned from movies like "Braveheart" or there was no editing at all or both. I mean fiction is fiction, but in historical fiction you need to get the facts strait-you can pay with character emotions, things that are disputed by the historical communities...but not strait out facts!) The plot inches along at a snails pace. Even the action parts of the book are boring. There are only two interesting things in the whole book in fact, one is Isabella and Edwards fights which are really something and the other is the intimation that Edward III is not the son of Edward II, but his real father is never named.

Anyway, this book is a great way to put yourself to sleep. I managed to finish it, but unless you like sleeping all the time or being in a catatonic state, I wouldn't recommend it.

One star.

I agree with the first two reviewers, this book is very badly researched and sloppily written. I actually found it entertaining for the sheer amusement value at all the historical mistakes and anachronistic style of writing. This Isabelle is a product of Edith Felber's imagination, and only bears the slightest resemblance to the historical figure of The She-Wolf of France (not "She-Wolf of Paris" as Ms. Felber put it). In the book, she speaks neither English or French, she speaks contemporary American English, with an "aye" or "nay" here and there for "local colour". The few words of French used are just as bad.

Actually, reading this book made me so mad I had to run and find a history of Isabelle written by a French author (in this case Maurice Druon, of the Académie française) and thoroughly documented, just to take the bad taste out of my mouth, metaphorically speaking.

Since a synopsis has already been posted, I'll just comment on a few details.

I thoroughly resent the aspersion cast on Edward III's legitimacy. Ms. Felber hints at a Scottish father without naming him. She must have seen "Braveheart" but realized that what Mel Gibson made there was one of the most historically inaccurate movie of all times. About the only thing that's accurate about it is that the man was really named William Wallace. But Isabelle (who never set foot in Scotland anyway) was 3 years old when Edward II defeated Wallace, and Edward III was born seven years after Wallace's death. That doesn't keep Ms. Felber from persisting in her assertion that he's not Edward II's son, she even has Isabelle go so far as telling her husband "He's my son, he has royal blood in him, that's enough" (meaning, he has French royal blood, not English). And then at the end of the book, Ms. Felber is so sloppy she mixes up the generations. She has Isabelle look fondly at her grandson and thinking "how like his father - God rest his soul - he is." She means, he's like not "his father", who's Edward III, and who's still very much alive, but "his grandfather", the un-named Scots with whom Isabelle is supposed to have had an affair (Heaven only knows where and when.)

I also resent the fact that Isabelle is made this sweet, lovey-dovey thing who's hurt at being called a "She-Wolf". She was far from sweet, she was made of steel, just like her father, Philippe IV The Fair, who was called "The Iron King". She had to be, just to survive, and to ensure her son would be king of a realm that wouldn't have been totally despoiled by the Despensers. That is what is admirable about her, she was smart, and she was ruthless. And she was a Queen, a real one.

The affair she supposedly had with Mortimer at the Tower of London is rather laughable. Can you imagine the Queen of England, especially one as closely watched as Isabelle was, slipping away for a tryst in the prisons of the Tower without the whole Court knowing it? She did have an affair with him, that is true, but according to Druon, that didn't start until they were both safely in France.

Ms. Felber prettifies the story too much, makes it 21st century rather than 13th century - a more savage age, when gruesome public executions served as popular entertainment. Gwenith being sick at the younger Hugh Le Despenser's execution (and I admit I myself would be sick, but then I'm a 20th-21st century woman) is not believable. At the time, a Queen's lady-in-waiting would have seen much worse - especially one from Wales, as Gwenith is.

And if Ms. Felber had bothered with the merest check on Google, she'd have known that today's historians agree that Edward II wasn't executed with a red hot poker - in fact that he wasn't executed at all. Though both she and Druon tell the same tale about the order from Mortimer and the Queen starting with "Bonum est", which could be interpreted in opposite ways.

She also gets it right that Edward III's claim to the French throne was the start of the 100 Years War. Actually, his claim was pretty legitimate, but that's another story.

Anyway - from now on Edith Felber is off my list of "historical romance" writers I'll read. I'll go with Sharon Kay Penman, some others whose name escape me at the moment, and yes, even Philippa Gregory.

I definitely do not recommend this book, especially not to people who want their historical novels based on factual history. Embroider the facts, invent dialogues, yes. Get names, dates and facts wrong, no.

I must admit, I only started reading this book, then skimmed the rest but as early as the first few pages, I realized that Edith Felber had done very little, if any, research on her subject.

The first scene where we see Isabella is her getting to England with her new husband after their wedding. She was, in the book, 12 years old. A quick check of history books show that she was born in 1292 and got married in 1308, which makes her 15 or 16 (depending on which month she was born, and which month she was married.)

Well, for beginning a story, getting the title character's age wrong is pretty bad. Then the scene when she looks stonily as her bridegroom gives away her most treasured wedding gifts to his lover... It's a good scene, and Isabelle was born and bred a princess, so, whether 12 or 16, she knew how to behave with dignity in public. But going on loving that cad of a husband after that? It's just not believable.

The fictional character of Gwenith de Percy is all 21st century gal. I don't see her surviving one day in 14th century England.

The barely veiled innuendoes about Isabella's affair with an anonymous Scots is just plain slander. Though it's true that she did have a long affair with Roger Mortimer (whose wife was named Jeanne de Joinville, not de Genneville), it was only after she had borne Edward II four children, all legitimate. She'd been brought up that way, and she'd have made extremely sure her sons were sons of a king, and grandsons of kings on both sides. Her father had instilled that into her, reminding her - when she once complained to him that she was not happy in her marriage - that "Isabelle, I didn't marry you to a man, I married you to a king. Happiness doesn't enter in the equation." (well, words to that effect anayway.) So she knew was she was in for and made the best of it. There's also the small matter that there's no record of her having ever visited Scotland before she got pregnant (or after.)

Isabella may not have been a likeable person, but she was a princess royal through and through, and for that she earns admiration and respect. Making her this sweet, wishy-washy, colourless person is an insult to her memory, even if it makes her more "simpatico" to the contemporary reader.

I definitely do NOT recommend this book to any history lover. To quote a previous reviewer, it's a waste of time and money.

This was the third book I have read covering this particular period in English history. Some of you may be familiar with a bit of this period, thanks to the Mel Gibson film Braveheart, though that movie obviously took many liberties with history. The previous books I had read about this period all portrayed Queen Isabella as a spiteful woman, totally deserving of her eventually nickname "the She-Wolf." She is much more sympathetic in this novel and I didn't feel like I hated her at the end of the story (even though by most accounts she probably was pretty bad).

Isabella, Princess of France, comes to England married to Edward II (son of the great Edward I, who beat William Wallace). She is completely in love with her handsome, tall, golden haired husband at first, even comparing him to King Arthur. Edward eventually kills that love (and does a really good job at it, too) because of his blatant flaunting of his preference for his male favorites (first Piers Gaveston, then Hugh Despenser). Isabella sees how the barons of England are fed up with how Edward rewards his favorites with land, titles, and money and how he seems to leave the governing of his kingdom to these favorites. They can't stand how powerful the favorites become just because the King will deny them nothing. She fears that her son (the future Edward III) will not have a kingdom to inherit if things don't change. The king's current favorite, Hugh Despenser, is a greedy, power hungry man who is making enemies all over England; rich or poor it doesn't seem to matter as he manages to anger them all. It is during this time that she meets and falls in love with Roger Mortimer, a prisoner in the Tower, and helps him escape to France. After being reduced basically to a prisoner by Hugh Despenser after he has convinced Edward that Isabella can't be trusted (her servants, money, and children all taken away and Despenser's wife is put with her to "guard" her), she contrives to be sent to France to plead with her brother for peace between the two kingdoms. Once there, she begins making plans to return to England and overthrow her husband, setting her son on the throne (and of course, rule through him). She refuses to return to England, knowing that once there she'll be back in the clutches of Despenser and powerless to do anything about it. After almost two years in France and then Burgundy, she, Mortimer, and her son Edward, sail back to England with an army supplied by Burgundy, where they are victorious without a sword being drawn. The barons and the people of England are quite happy to have Edward off the throne just to get rid of the influence of Despenser. Isabella is finally able to extract revenge on the Despensers (quite gruesomely) and Edward II gives up his throne to his son. At the end the author gives a bit of a different twist on what eventually happens with Edward III, Isabella, and Mortimer, making it seem as if Isabella realizes that Mortimer is becoming like the Despensers and helps her son escape from his clutches.

Since in the other books I have read that deal with Isabella make her seem like a real b***h, this was quite a change and made me see that it COULD be possible that she wasn't quite as evil as history seems to make her. There are times when I feel like she is being a bit selfish or blind, but overall she does come across as much more likable. As to the historical accuracy of this, I am unsure. It seems reasonable to believe that Isabella, for example, would have wanted her husband "out of the way" so there could be no attempt to place him back on the throne and would most likely have been aware of plans to remove him, though in the story it seems like she is portrayed as not realizing what was going to happen to him. Edward II, on the other hand, really seems completely inept for the job of being king and is completely blind when it comes to his favorites, refusing to believe anything negative about them. I never really felt any sympathy for him because he ignored advice from everyone and walked right into disaster.

And usually I can tough things out but the dialogue was so banal, so crappy, that I couldn't continue. And it wasn't believeable. Is it a cliche to say the characters were 2 dimensional? Well they were. I didn't get past 15 pages. Sorry Edith Felber. I don't know who Mary Jo Putney is (except for the glowing review your book cover boasts) but she has terrible taste in writers!

First of all, the term "Majesty" was not used until Henry VIII styled himself as such a couple of centuries later. There are many other details which are inaccurate and for the avid reader of Historical Novels, (NOT historical romances) it was sometimes difficult to get past them to enjoy the story. This author was not as thorough on her research as she should have been. Two authors who ARE who I love and I have read nearly everything they've written are Margaret George and Sharon Kay Penman.
As a descendant of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, I am particularly interested in historical fiction from this time period. The author should be aware that unlike historical romances, the readers of historical novels DO know their history.

At twelve French Princess Isabella marries King Edward II of England. As she matures, she agrees with the assessment of Parliament that her spouse is weak and easily manipulated even by a relatively young female though his preference is male. When Parliament demands the monarch share the throne with the Earl of Winchester, Edward is ready to acquiesce, but Isabella objects. She assumes her homosexually inclined pathetic (at least in her mind) husband is willing to co-rule because he is attracted to the Earl's offspring, Hugh.

Tired of her husband's failures, Isabella through her lady-in-waiting Gwenith meets Welshman Baron Owain de Rhys who in turn introduces her to Lord Roger Mortimer held in the London Tower. With the help of Owain and Gwenith, who hates Edward for slaughtering her family, she begins seeing the prisoner for sex and intrigue until she smuggles him out of the Tower and country to France where they complete their plot to overthrow Edward and place her son on the throne by 1326.

Edith Felber provides a strong fourteenth century historical fiction tale that is filled with political intrigue but also has a somewhat biographical feel to the novel and a secondary romantic subplot (between the plotters) to anchor the fine story line. Fans of the author, if they recognize that Ms. Felber is historical romance writer Edith Layton will appreciate this well written tale of the QUEEN OF SHADOWS whose son became Edward III.

Harriet Klausner

Queen of Shadows is a marvelous book. I liked it so much I wrote a blurb for it. I have written myself about dark ages and medieval Britain, and Edith Felber captures so well the color, the sights, the sounds, the smells of a medieval English court. Isabella (whom I had always thought to be a villainess) comes across as a strong woman who has the guts to take her destiny (and that of her country) into her own capable hands. This is the first review I have ever written for Amazon, but I didn't want potential readers to miss out on this wonderful book because of a highly dyspectic previous review. Joan Wolf

As a previous reviewer apparently does not understand, this is a work of historical FICTION. The author has chosen the parts of her research that worked best for her story. And as all historians know, historical research can find a different answer for any side of an historical argument. History books are often slanted according to the politics of the era or the author, so unless an author has a means of time travel, there is very seldom a definitive answer to historical questions.

The parts of Isabella's life portrayed in QUEEN OF SHADOWS were chosen to illuminate her strengths and weaknesses, and to pull back the curtain and show the reader a slice of her life and loves. The book was written brilliantly to reflect Isabella's effect on history, from a woman's point of view. I thoroughly enjoyed this peek behind the curtains and the theory that Ms. Felber chose to put forward, and I'm looking forward to the next book!