I hate it when I read a book that everyone else really admires -- and I don't. It reminds me of the SEINFELD episode where everyone except Elaine loves the film The English Patient, and she takes abuse for it.
I actually read THE ROSE OF YORK: LOVE AND WAR, twice, to see if I missing something? Was there some complexity I wasn't getting? Some message I was missing? And both times the answer was: this romance just doesn't resonate. Richard of Gloucester and Lady Anne Neville are a rather weak couple, manipulated by persons and events. This may well be true-to-life but doesn't give their fictional story the patina of high romance that it needs.
Even when they are reunited, there's no "aaaah!" factor. It reads OK, but the moment doesn't vibrate with romance --not like A BED OF SPICES, or LADY OF THE GLEN, just to name two novels that glow with romance. Perhaps if the author had kept Richard just a little wicked -- more tempted to do unto his brother(s) than he is here, more apt to take offense at the wrongs done to him, instead of abiding all these things out of loyalty -- there would have been some tension. As for frail, pale Anne...well, I remember her bony figure more than I do her feelings, her passion for Richard, or her strength of will.
I don't dislike these characters, and their story could have been fascinating. I think that unfortunately, the author is not a very strong, or shall I say, inventive, writer. She has a Purpose (and it's never very much fun to read an author who has a Purpose.) Ms. Worth wants to re-write the historically 'bad' Richard as a really 'fine' and 'good' man, a worthy King. That's great if you're doing a paper for a historical magazine, but the problem is, really 'good' people don't make the most interesting fictional characters. There has to be some gray area in the white of the good character, to breathe life into the fiction. Just as an evil character is a cartoon villian if there's no pinch of 'goodness', so can a 'good' character be flat and dull without a little spice.
Take the characters of the Kingmaker, the Earl of Warwick, or his brother, John. Or the King, Edward IV. Now, here are lively characters that really breathe. I'll remember them, after I've forgotten fearful Richard and fragile Anne.
Even though I felt that the writing here is mediocre, I'll give the sequel a try. I'm curious to see if Richard and Anne become a little more human, or if the author can breathe some romance into their romance.
