The Sunne in Splendour [Paperback]

Sharon Kay Penman (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Viking Penguin; PF edition (1984)
• ASIN: B001KYN12O
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (200 customer reviews)

More About the Author

I am an American of Irish-English-Welsh heritage, and I currently live in New Jersey, although many of my readers imagine I am happily dwelling upon a Welsh mountaintop--but no such luck. I was once a tax lawyer, which I looked upon as penance for my sins. Like most writers, I was born with a love of the written word, although I never expected to be able to support myself as a writer; when you read about starving artists in their garrets, most of them have starving writers as roommates. But I was very lucky and I have been blessed to make my living as a writer for the past twenty-seven years or so. All of my novels--eleven at last count--are set in the Middle Ages, and focus upon England's most colorful dynasty, the Plantagenets. It is almost as if they lived their dramatic and often wildly improbable lives with future historical novelists in mind, and I am very grateful to them--especially to the Angevins,Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and their equally famous children, known to their contemporaries as the Devil's Brood.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

261 of 267 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richard III Society's Anthem, July 21, 2002

By 

Richard R. Carlton (Ada, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sunne in Splendour (Paperback)

Although Penman may be paying court to the Richard III Society, the controversy is strengthened (I still think he killed the kids). OK, so I'm not very open minded on Richard.....but Penman had me convinced throughout the read that I was wrong. This speaks well for her reputation as one of the best historical novelists. This is where she started. Her special genius lies in the bright and shining historical detail that she can weave into both plot and dialog (she's a very good student of history and at times is absolutely brilliant in conveying to us the workings of medieval minds).

I have no problem with Penman's romantic feelings about her heros. From Eleanor in the 1st trilogy to Joanna in Here Be Dragons to her raising the standard of Simon de Montfort as a visionary (but historically too early) icon of democracy, she does use them as a vehicle to carry forward a dynamic presentation of history....all in the best traditions of the historical novel.

Penman's true genius is the broad historical scope that is painted on top of the shimmering details of brief moments. It truely does feel as if you are living the story yourself, and it is this bringing us readers in as witnesses that stands as Penman's contribution to the art of the historical
novel.

If you prefer to read in chronological order:
1101-1154 When Christ And His Saints Slept (Vol 1 of Trilogy)
1156-1171 Time And Space (Vol 2 of Trilogy)
12th Cent Devil's Brood (Vol 3 of Trilogy)- not yet released
1192-1193 The Queen's Man
1193 Cruel As The Grave
1183-1232 Here Be Dragons (Vol 1 of Welsh Trilogy)
1231-1267 Falls The Shadow (Vol 2 of Welsh Trilogy)
1271-1283 The Reckoning (Vol 3 of Welsh Trilogy)
1459-1492 The Sunne In Splendour

79 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practically Perfect, June 10, 2003

By 

Patricia A. Powell (gladstone, nj USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Sunne in Splendour (Paperback)

This is the best of the historic fiction genre. I cannot recall the last time I enjoyed a 900+ page novel so much. The Sunne in Splendour is an historic novel about the War of the Roses and its players; its about Warwick, Edward, Richard, Henry the last, Lancastrian king, Marguerite dAnjou, the Woodvilles, the Nevilles, and the Tudors. Having read Allison Weirs history, The War of the Roses, and having seen Shakespeares Richard III, I thought I knew a bit about both the story and the players. But I never quite saw them the story in this light.

One reviewer described this book as daring. I agree. Unlike Shakespeare, and the histories written by Tudor sycophants, Penman (through historic fiction) portrays Richard sympathetically, and heroically. She represents his claim to the throne as legitimate and creates a plausible alternative to disappearance of the princes in the tower, one in which Richard is quite innocent.

This is a story full of power struggles, warfare, greed, and avarice. It is a story full of malice, politics betrayal, murder, and yes love.

Is should be hard to care about people who lived in the 15th century, but it is not. Sharon Kay Penman brings all of the characters and their many faces to life. She tells the story to the 30+ years of warfare. We all know that history is written by the victorious. Five centuries after the events, Penman brilliantly gives Richard III a voice.

I highly recommend this book.

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five, Ten, ONE HUNDRED STARS! My Kingdom for this Book!, July 4, 2001

By 

E. A. Lewis "vox meretrix" (Downtown Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sunne in Splendour (Paperback)

Is it fair to review a book that changed your life? No, literally. At fourteen I stayed up until four in the morning, devouring this story of medieval power and politics, and have been a medieval historian ever since.

Penman has done a fantastic job of turning dry historical fact into fascinating and believable historical fiction. People's motives are not simple and easily understandable in real life, and the sometimes-conflicting drives and needs and desires of the cast of thousands in this book live up to that fact.

While undeniable sympathetic to King Richard the Third, it is not a cloying, simplistic, Good King Richard whitewash. Instead, it portrays the much-maligned king as an adoring younger brother left adrift when his idol dies and proves to have been less than perfect.

Supporting characters are equally complex, from the self-destructive King Edward to the self-absorbed Kingmaker, Warwick, from the unlikely queen Elizabeth Woodville to the helpless pawn, Elizabeth of York, from the insane King Henry VI to the ambitious King Henry VII. Possibly the only black villain in the piece is the Duke of Buckingham; everyone else is painted in shades of grey that make them honest people, rather than props.

If you can't stand historical novels because they are boring, read this. ...It's better than the tabloids!