It seems that I have got back to physical book reading in earnest.
I read this first book of the six-book series 18 months ago while on holiday in Spain and got through it in two days!!! What a fantastic tale, I love these sorts of books that meld historial facts with historical fiction. When done well (which this has), it creates a very exciting story line. The Great Fire of London and its aftermath told over the five subsequent books have been woven into a great tale.
Having been born in London and visited many of the places mentioned in this and the subsequent books such as The Monument, St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Tower to name a few, again shows the research that Andrew Taylor must have done to produce these books.
A recommendation from my sister, and what a great story this turned out to be. I had not read any books by Kate Mosse before, but this story centres around people from different sides of the then religious divide during the initial French Wars of Religion affecting the Huguenots and the Catholics.
Set across Southern France, mainly in Carcassonne, Toulouse and the small village of Puivert, it’s a great tale that again shows the huge amount of research that must have gone into the writing of this book by Kate Mosse.
I’m glad I read this book, which also brought back memories of my many travels in France for business and pleasure – though in the 20th century! I will look forward to reading the next one in the series – The City of Tears, which carries on with the story, but this time relocating to Amsterdam and Northern France,
It’s strange how you come across books to read, while reading The Burning Chambers and looking at some online search results about its story content – I do that a lot; up popped a link ‘if you read this, then you might like this‘ and that is how I discovered Phillipa Gregory. Then I found the list that she had put together for the series of The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels to be read in which order.
So this is how I came to read The Lady of the Rivers. I really enjoyed this book, though I was a bit unsure till I got to halfway thought it and then I was hooked. A great story set during the latter years of the Hundred Years War and the various royal intrigues of the time.
Who would have thought that a 14-year-old girl from Luxemburg would end up affecting the history of the next 100 odd years through her marriage and descendants. A great book, I already have the next one – The White Queen – in my stack of books to read. It turns out that there was a BBC adaptation of this broadcast in 2011. Not sure that I remember watching this at the time, so it will have to be either online from Amazon or a DVD purchase (probably not), as it is no longer in BBC iPlayer.
I’m looking forward to reading the whole series of these books.
Beasley's Place 