Carole's Saturday Review: The lady of the rivers - Philippa Gregory

Author: Philippa Gregory

Title: The Lady of the Rivers (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels #1)

Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, and Fantasy

Pages: 502

First Published: September 2011

Where I Got It: Borrow from library

Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Luxembourg and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, was married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of 19, she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her household for love, and then carved out a new life for herself. 

I truly have a love-hate relationship with this author. I either like her books or I hate them. There are a couple that fall in between. Sometimes the authors bends the historical facts too much and sometimes she does a good job. I think she does have a bias against some characters and she bends them too much for my liking. 

Now, this story follows Jacquetta who is very underrated as a historical figure. She really intrigues me whenever she pops up. I find her story interesting. She is forced to marry an older man who dies. She gets his title and all that. Instead of marrying within in station, she marries a man who use to work for her late hubbie. Which this man is WAYYYYYYYYYYYY below her station. Very interesting for the times. What is even more interesting is that the king at the time quickly forgives her and her husband. Too quickly, but the king was a a decent man in some aspects.

In this version of the story, the author plays on the fact that Jacquetta was accused of being a witch and does make her have some supernatural powers like telling the future. Very interesting take to actually have her have visions and whatnot. I liked it, but I didn't really care for her first hubbie approving of these powers and trying to use them for his gain. At the time, I don't think he would have approved of her powers and would have screamed witch. 

This was a fun book to read, because I liked the characters. However, there were SO MANY LULLS and nothing happening that I legit fell asleep a couple of times. I feel that there should have been some POV changes when Jacquetta was at home giving birth to her millionth child. Yes, the woman was a freakin' rabbit! xI But yes, sooooo many lulls that I did a lot of skimming.  

The ending dragged on and on and on. The ending was cliff-hangerish if you do not know your history. And I get why she did that, because the story is not over yet. 

In the end, I liked this. However, it was slow moving and the ending never ended. I am curious in reading the next book. This wasn't great, but it was okay. Out of five stars, I shall stamp this with 3.