Customer Reviews

White Rose Rebel: A Novel of the Female "Braveheart"

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

 

 

Magnificent, engrossing and inspiring

I absolutely loved White Rose Rebel. It's an astonishing and deeply moving story of the 1745 Jacobite war in Britain which opens with a hunting scene. In the mountains, a dirge plays faintly on distant pipes and drums. There is a shot and a deer falls. A young girl in a velvet and lace highland dress rushes from cover to claim her kill. From that beginning, the action never stops. The girl is Anne Farquharson who becomes Colonel Anne, a real-life Highland heroine of the Jacobite Rising.

By chapter two, when her adult story starts, we've already met the two men who will love her. They're clan chiefs and bonded friends. In keeping with her nature, she marries the most challenging one. The relationship is passionate but they try to dominate each other. When the Rising starts, Anne expects her husband to join it, especially after brutal action against their clan by government forces. Instead, he joins the British side. Appalled, Anne raises his people to fight for the Jacobites and with her ex-lover at her side, goes to war.

Janet Paisley's research is excellent, using period documents for the earliest facts except where those are not known. She also understands the ethos of Scottish clans, the equality between the sexes and their democracy, and uses the erosion of those after Scotland's union with England as the reason why so many women support the Jacobite bid to regain the throne. These were women who had rights which English women at the time couldn't even dream of, and they behaved accordingly. There is an interesting writer's note at the back and a glossary though the few Gaelic and Scots words are easily understood while reading.

The battle scenes, when husband and wife face each other on opposite sides, are superb, bloody and brutal, but accurate. The sex scenes, as Colonel Anne sways between love for her errant husband and for her supportive lover, are the best I've read, tense, exciting and beautifully written. Even the minor characters in White Rose Rebel leap off the page, real and alive. I laughed with them as they danced and joked, and cried for them when they suffered pain and loss. These brave and admirable men and women are caught up in the reality of civil war as it tears apart the British union and the Scottish nation, splitting families, friends and couples.

Their clan culture is destroyed at the battle of Culloden. This must be the best fictional account of that battle ever written. Visual and visceral, the sounds and smells surround the reader. We're on that field, and we know and care about those who fight and die. Only the hardest heart could fail to be moved by the carnage. The book is written from a Jacobite point-of-view but even among the enemy there are people to love or to despise and fear. The danger to Anne's life increases with every rapidly-turning page as the aftermath of defeat brings difficult and painful times before the story reaches a satisfying, moving conclusion.

I can't praise this book enough. Packed with adventure, sexual tension, political intrigue, betrayal, cruelty and heartbreak, it also manages to be uplifting and inspiring. The writing is scenic, filmic and easy to visualise. It's literary and poetic but eminently readable with a powerful love story which is honest rather than romantic. White Rose Rebel brings period and people to life in a magnificent novel with themes of equality and democracy which are still being fought for today. It's also a brilliantly researched fictional tribute to a heroine who should be better known. A great read which I thoroughly recommend.

This heroine, Anne, Scottish Rebel is one I will never forget reading about. Her story is truly the most gutsy and courageous one yet. I absolutely loved her. The story begins with her marriage to a clans chief and then leads to the return of the Prince and her and her husband end up fighting on opposite sides. She and her lover fight for Scots freedom and independence and right to maintain their way of life. She is next to him in battle, faces her husband down, aides and abets Scottish prisoners. I HATED her husband and I HATED how she forgave and went back to him. I felt he was a coward catering to the English and allowing his people to be raped and murdered. Besides that, my only qualms with this book was that there was often too many characters with similar names. I had to go back thru it and figure out whom I was reading about at the moment and what they had done before in previous chapters. A "people tree" was almost needed. There was a quite a bit of sexual obsession too. I am curious as to how women in this day and age had so much say so and independence, when just a century before (according to other novels) women were mere adornments on men's arms. So I wonder at the accuracy. I thoroughly enjoyed it tho. What a woman and she fought till the end. Even the English could not put out the flame of her rebellious spirit. Also, there is some gory and violent scenes so not for the faint of heart.

This is a first-rate historical novel centering on an irresistible heroine, Colonel Anne. Janet Paisley has done an astonishing job of rescuing, and brilliantly imagining, a little-known 'real' historical figure who fought, against her husband's wishes, in the Jacobite Rebellion.

Compelling, enlightening and hugely entertaining, don't miss it.

White Rose Rebel is a fictional story based on the life of Anne Farquarson, Scotland's 'Colonel Anne' who lead the Jacobite rebels to war in 1745 in an attempt to regain Scotland's independence from England.

When Anne's husband Aeneas Macintosh joins the Black Watch and fights with the English army, Anne raises her own troops and with her first love, Alexander MacGillivray as her Captain, leads them to battle, fighting against her husband.

While I really enjoyed reading about this period in history, I was disappointed by the lack of character development, most characters were not developed well at all and even the main characters were very stereotypical.

I was also disappointed by the lack of detail to setting. I often had a difficult time picturing where events were occurring because there were so few details describing the setting of events and almost none describing clothing.

Some of the situations were bordering on the ridiculous. There were detailed sex scenes, which is something I think typically detracts from serious works of fiction.

And while I am certain that Janet Paisley knows this story like the back of her hand sometimes she was not very good at creating a vivid picture of it for the reader. There are places where the wording leads to ambiguity and uncertainty.

But I will say that I did enjoy this book despite the many criticisms I have about it. I really loved the feminist slant to the story and the history of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 as well as the history of Scotland. And I will seek out other books on the topic.

I would say if you like Romance novels you will probably love this. Though there are plenty of gory details of war.

If you are a hard core literary fan who reads historical fiction you might like this, or you might be totally disgusted and hate it.

That's the thing about books...you just never know which one will be your next favorite.

If anyone has recommendations for other reading on this topic please share them with me, thanks :0)

WHILE ON A VACATION TO SCOTLAND THIS SUMMER, I BOUGHT THIS BOOK. WELL I STAYED UP UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING . I JUST COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN. IT'S THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ SINCE THE RED TENT. NOW AT HOME I'M LOOKING UP ANYTHING I CAN FIND ON ANNE FARQUHARSON.
PLEASE JANET PAISLEY, WRITE ANOTHER BOOK I'LL BE THE FIRST TO GET MY HANDS ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I received Janet Paisley's WHITE ROSE REBEL in the mail yesterday, and have finished it this morning. That said, its certainly a page-turner. But to what end? WHITE ROSE REBEL has an interesting premise, a sold build up in the first quarter of the story, and then somewhere along the way, turns into a convoluted nest of confusing plot lines and loose ends.

Set in Scotland, 1745, WHITE ROSE REBEL follows the life story of Anne Farquharson-a independent and feisty Scot who recruits members of her clan for the Jacobite cause, against her husband (who joined up with the Hanoverians, for reasons this novel failed to explain sufficiently). It also details her indecision between love for said husband and her lover and friend since childhood, Alexander MacGillivray.

This was the biggest problem for me during the novel: believing that Anne actually had love for either of them. Her relationship with MacGillivray could have been written more convincingly as growing out of friendship, and Paisley seems to keep insisting throughout the novel that that's what it is. But she tells us this, never shows us it. Their love seems superficial, and their actions sometimes bordering on absurd or overdramatic.

There is no prelude to her relationship with her husband either. She just one day decides that he's the man for her? He seemed completely wrong for her, and was my least favorite character. I'm not sure if that had to do with his personality or with the way he was written. Either way, he didn't seem like the brave character or romantic hero Paisley might have intended.

Characterization aside for a moment, this novel started out very interesting. From the moment the real action started (pretty much the moment it was announced that Bonnie Prince Charlie had landed in Scotland), I was hooked. The story line was interesting, and the battle scenes horrific but captivating. The new characters were colorful (even if Robert Nairn was a little over-the-top about announcing his homosexuality to anyone with ears). Everything seemed lovely up to the turning point-the battle at Culloden. There were a few nit-picky things up till then, but nothing worth pulling your hair out over. After the battle, the plot started plunging downhill. I'm convinced that this book did not need to be half as long as it was. It was Anne saving this person, Anne saving that person, Anne and Aeneas fighting over this, Anne and Aeneas fighting over that, seventy percent of the characters getting killed in various ways... it got a little confusing, not to mention repetitive.

If this novel had ended at Culloden, it would have been excellent. I was really enjoying it to that point, and Janet Paisley is certainly a talented writer. But with loose ends (like Clementina. What was up with Clementina? Did I miss something there?) and a convoluted ending, it was almost a struggle to read the last few chapters.

This book is based on facts from a very painful period of Scottish history. The conflict between Lady Anne McIntosh and her husband reflected Scotland's desperate struggle to regain some cultural independence from England after the Union of the Parliaments in 1707. The fact that this struggle failed, and resulted in the brutal genocide of the Highland clans, can be laid at the door of the hapless Bonnie Prince Charlie and his misguided supporters. Lady Anne was one of those. Her husband showed much better judgment in refusing to march with Charlie.

Janet Paisley writes this story with flair and vivid descriptions, including the bloody Battle of Culloden, where the son of the English king exterminated the Highlanders with a brutality seldom matched in history. She illuminates the character of the feisty Lady Anne and, with less success, the steady common sense of her husband. But by glorifying Anne's, and through Anne, Bonnie Prince Charlie's, actions, she does not really help the reader understand why Charlie was such a disaster for Scotland.

You may not be disappointed with this story. In my case, I was searching for historical fiction and felt cheated.

"White Rose Rebel" is based on the true-life story of Colonel Anne, who opposed her husband and joined the Jacobite cause fighting for Prince Charlie against the English at the Battle of Culloden.

While the story has some true sounding elements, the book is written more like a romance than historical fiction. For one thing, the scene setting and explanation of politics and history just wasn't up to par and the story relied too much on sex and sensuality rather than the facts.

If you're looking for another "Outlander" type book, you'll probably enjoy "White Rose Rebel." On the other hand, if you're wanting a bit more of the history of this valiant heroine, you need to dig a bit deeper.

Rebecca Kyle, January 2009