Her Highness, the Traitor by Susan Higginbotham

I received a galley of this novel from NetGalley for review. This in no way affected my opinions.


Her Highness, the Traitor opens with the death of Henry VIII and ends after the execution of Lady Jane Grey.

The book is told from the point-of-view of two women: Jane's mother Frances Grey; and Jane Dudley. The chapters went back and forth between them and the story didn't suffer for it. Admittedly, sometimes I did forget whose chapter I was on, but that may have been my own problem, seeing as I always have trouble keeping people straight with stories of this time period. It didn't help that some of the characters actually changed titles as the story went on. Oye, my poor brain.

I digress. I loved the two separate voices, and enjoyed seeing the same events from each of their perspective's. And as their lives started to cross, due to the marriage of their children, it was interesting seeing how each woman viewed the other.

I learned quite a bit from this book, because I only knew the bare bones of the legend surrounding Lady Jane Grey. I appreciated that the author leaned more towards fact than suspected fiction and biases through the centuries. I also appreciated how events weren't glossed over or sugarcoated: such as the executions. One of them was particularly upsetting, but it needed to be shown.

I'm not a big Tudor reader, but I think it's more that I tend to stay away from books surrounding Henry VIII, which is probably 95% of them.

I enjoyed this one. Definitely recommended.

The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham

I received a review copy of this novel from Sourcebooks. This in no way affected my opinions.

A fascinating and gripping novel about Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry IV.

I must admit, I knew next to nothing about this woman, but from what I understand, she hasn't had a very good reputation through the centuries of history. Of course, as is with history, one version or one opinion of someone from somebody often becomes fact and that is how a historical figure is perceived, so I am not so quick to judge Margaret.

The Queen of Last Hopes shows a Margaret who is steadfast, loyal and driven, but is also loving and kind. She fights for her husband and her son's birthright and nothing will stop her. She shows great courage in times of peril and leadership in times of victory.

In The Queen of Last Hopes, we see often from the point of view of Margaret, but we also sometimes see things from other folks' perspective, such as William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and from Margaret's own son Edward, Prince of Wales. This did not hinder the flow of the story at all, if anything, it enhanced it.

This is a brilliant piece of historical fiction and is highly recommended.

The Traitor's Wife by Susan Higginbotham

I ventured into uncharted territory picking up this book. I had never gone back this far in either fiction or non fiction. The farthest I ever went back beforehand was the 1600s. And I'm not very educated in English history before the 1800s, so I learned a lot. One of the things that is great about historical fiction, is that you end up wanting to learn more about the people and events you're reading about. That's what happened here, I learned about a period of history I wasn't educated in before.

The Traitor's Wife was vastly researched, there is no doubt about that. That is much appreciated.

The story itself got better as it went along. Once Eleanor got older, she got more wiser and her character developed and I liked her very much, while at the beginning of the story I wasn't sure. Her children: Hugh and Edward I ended up liking very much. Both of them vastly different from each other, and you could see their distinct personalities. I'm glad we got insight into the children, that was one of my favorite things about The Traitor's Wife, so I'm just itching to read Hugh and Bess.

One thing I can appreciate, is when you end up hating a character because there isn't any other feeling you can attend to them. They're just evil. It's easy to write a likable character, but to write one so horrible in nature such as Roger Mortimer, is harder than it seems. I loved that (I inwardly went "Yay!" when he met his fate).

In the end, I ended up loving this book and can't wait to read more by the author.