Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Characters disappointing; not enough use of the setting, but not bad., April 17, 2006
This review is from: A Rose for the Crown: A Novel (Paperback)
I must admit, I had high hopes for this novel. I love an intelligent historical romance, and this looked like it would be right up my alley.
Anne Easter Smith focuses her story on a character who is mostly fictional--her name is in the historical record but it's not clear what for. Smith theorizes that, given Richard III's kindness toward his illegitimate children, perhaps they were all the offspring of one beloved mistress. She surmises that this obscure name may belong to this mistress, and uses the scant historical record as the bones of the story she fleshes out here.
Kate Haute, Smith's protagonist, is that mistress. We follow her through two disastrous marriages and into her relationship with Richard, who will later become king. The spotlight really is on Kate, not on the politics of the day; you'll read a great deal about Kate's mundane life. When the politics begin to appear more heavily in the story, they've perhaps been absent too long. Suddenly the author is trying to cram years of background into a few pages to catch the reader up. It might have worked better to introduce more of the politics into Kate's conversations with Richard and other characters, such as Jack Howard. It's not that I didn't know what was going on--I'm relatively familiar with the history--it's just that it clunked a bit.
Where the story really failed to engage me, though, was in the character department. We'll start with Richard. I understand that Smith was trying to write a sympathetic Richard, but her portrayal is over-the-top perfect. I prefer the more conflicted, nuanced version written by Sharon Kay Penman in _The Sunne in Splendour_, warts and all.
Then we have Kate. Kate is a Mary Sue. Every man falls to his knees at the sight of her beauty, except the gay character. Everyone remarks at every turn upon Kate's independent spirit. She doesn't make mistakes much. She, like Richard, is just a bit too much. In addition, I'm not sure I've ever seen a more baby-obsessed character, which I just had trouble relating to. I know there was a lot of emphasis on childbearing in that time period, but it wasn't so much a sentimental thing as it is today.
The way Kate deals with her third child is confusing and doesn't quite seem in-character; her actions feel forced, as though the author was trying too hard to come up with a way that this child, historically speaking, could have been Kate's offspring.
Then we have Anne Neville, who is never really consistent--good-hearted or rude and snobbish?
I'm sounding like I didn't like the book; that's not true at all. I was pretty engrossed in it while it lasted. It's not _The Sunne in Splendour_--but few books are. You might want to give this one a try, if you go in knowing that the turbulent Wars of the Roses are fairly peripheral to the story.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
39 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Behind every great man there is an even greater woman, May 27, 2006
This review is from: A Rose for the Crown: A Novel (Paperback)
At first while reading this book I thought I must have read it earlier so much of it felt familiar. In the beginning I thought that was because the main character in this book, Kate, is almost a carbon copy of Anne from Posie Graeme-Evans Anne series. But no, that wasn't it. Then I knew what it was.
You see, I used to write fan-fiction, stories that people wrote about their favorite TV show or movie or book, generally with the fan inserted into it. In this genera the "Mary-sue" character-a perfect person-pops up a lot. But there is one Mary-sue that pops up more than the others. This is the "Desirable Red head." She is small, slender, red haired and fantastically desirable to all people even if she looks like she's about twelve. She can also heal people amazingly.
That is the main character of this book, Kate. Physically she is exactly like the main character, Anne, from Posie Graeme-Evans' novels, and has the same healing skills (she also hooks up with a royal, just like Anne did.) She is the lover of Richard III, and the book is about her love affair and life with him. I suspect that "Kate" is just the body that Anne Easter Smith put her fantasy love for Richard into. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this novel reads like well written fan-fiction.
This book isn't bad really-it's more that it's very predictable. There's a certain way that historical novels like this one go. The lovers have bad love lives before meeting each other. One of them (usually the woman) will be from a disadvantaged background and thus be refreshingly earthy. That one will have rose to riches in a way that made her spunky and cute, but tough. Both will be essentially virgins the first time they have sex and they will not only fall instantly in love but have a baby immediately. Eventually the noble one of them will have to marry and thus they will be parted as lovers (the married one will be far too religious to cheat on his wife) and their lives will end tragically apart. This novel is that to a T.
If the rest of the book was better written that might be forgiven, but its really not. The dialog is stilted (people always go "woe is me" when something bad happens) and there is absolutely no use of the setting (wonderful England!) None of the characters are fully fleshed out and their actions make little sense. Kate's cousin in law, Elinor, decides to make Kate rue the day she came to live with her just because Kate is prettier than her daughter! If the character isn't a Mary sue than they are either all evil, or all good and quite jolly. The central theme in this book, loyalty, is introduced when Kate's father give her a lecture on it including a definition of the word. To be less subtle would have been impossible. And the romance is...unromantic. I still don't understand why they loved each other-they just seem to after having talked for about five minutes.
I've read a lot of books like this one. This one is better than most, because the woman in it was real (if nothing is known about her, including no evidence pointing to her being Richard's mistress) it does a fine job of describing the war of the roses and the whole Lancaster/York fight. Not knowing much about the period I was a little puzzled because in this book Richard can do no wrong. I know that he's a fairly controversial topic for historians, but didn't he do something bad? This book provided no alternative viewpoint and parts felt like it was written by Richard's publicist! Of course, the author does belong to the Richard III society, which battles to clear his name, so that makes sense.
In the end I don't know what to say. This is not a bad book by any means, its just not original or historical enough for me. I will say that this book has made me want to learn more about Richard III. For the money this book costs you should by a history book, or one of the more "historical" fiction versions of Richard's life. This one feels a little bit too much like the author's fantasy of her love affair with Richard III.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Imagining of History, March 25, 2006
This review is from: A Rose for the Crown: A Novel (Paperback)
A Rose for the Crown begins with Kate Bywood as a young, outspoken girl who attracts the attention of a well-off relative and is taken into his home as a companion for his mousy daughter. Through many twists and turns, young Kate is married twice and becomes friends with Margaret and John Howard, later to be the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk. Through them, she is introduced to Richard of Gloucester, the future King Richard the Third. A love affair ensues that brings Kate into the circles of royalty and intrigue and ultimately heartbreak.
I wasn't sure at first if I was going to like this novel, as it spends a great deal of time establishing Kate's early life before she meets Richard. In fact, much of that could have been cut in order to get to the heart of the story, the relationship between Kate and Richard. It is from this point that the story takes off and doesn't let go. The author spent a lot of time researching her subjects and is able to seamlessly weave historical characters and situations into her fabricated world. While both Richard and Kate are very young at the time of their relationship, Smith brings them to life and makes us ache with longing for them to remain together. Smith has accomplished that rarest of tasks: she has taken the known facts and embellished them into a believable, tantalizing tale. I especially appreciated her author's notes at the end that established how she obtained her material and why she developed the story as she did.
While a bit slow in the beginning, this book is a wonderful tale of love and intrigue. The author's style developed substantially over the course of the book and she did a fine job of creating the tale of Richard and the mother of his bastard children. Recommended reading for those who enjoy historical fiction.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
See Anne Easter Smith's 
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
