Between the Pages

This is the first book in a trilogy, set in England in the 1400s.  A young girl named Anne – born in dangerous and mysterious circumstances – come to work as a servant at the home of wealthy Mathew Cuttifer and his wife Margaret.  After tragedy strikes at the house, Anne finds herself working at the Royal Palace for the Queen Elizabeth Wydeville.  But King Edward covets Anne for himself, and although Anne knows that it is wrong, she cannot but help feeling irresistably drawn to the King.  However, danger lurks around every corner, and when secrets from the past come to light, Anne realises that she could be in very real danger…

This is definitely a book which I found it hard to make up my mind about.  On the plus side, the writing flowed easily and it was very ‘readable’.  It was also packed with historical detail (but beware that there is a lot of historical inaccuracy – Anne for example is not based on a real character at all), and the parts where the hair and clothing fashions of the day were mentioned, were fascinating.  The story itself was also pacey and kept me interested. 

However, I found it hard to invest in any of the characters, most of whom seemed two dimensional at best.  Anne is supposed to be a stunningly beautiful girl, but it got a bit tedious when this fact was constantly rammed down the reader’s throat – every single male character who laid eyes on her was instantly transfixed by her beauty, and this point was emphasised throughout the story.  She was just too twee and perfect to be a heroine who I could really invest in.  King Edward seemed to come across as a caricature, and Elizabeth Wydeville was portrayed as the wicked witch of the west!

The other problem was the writing, which was sometimes rather clunky, with grammatical mistakes  and lazy sentence construction.  However, this was not such a huge problem in itself (and should have been picked up by an editor).  What was a bigger problem were the (thankfully) occasional pages of utter smut, which added nothing whatsoever to the book and only served to slow the story down.  I’m not a prude and have no problem with sex in novels, but I do get annoyed when gratuitous sex scenes appear for no real reason.  They were fairly few and far between, but I would caution readers who don’t like such scenes to approach with caution.

Despite the criticism, I’m not sorry that I took the time to read this book, as the storyline itself was worth reading – I would consider reading the next two books in the series, but possibly not for quite a while.  If you’re a fan of historical fiction (with the emphasis on fiction). I’d probably recommend the book, but if like me you’re a fan of Philippa Gregory and are expecting something similar with this book, you might be disappointed.

(Author’s website can be found here.)