The Lady of the Rivers

 Philippa Gregory,
         My favorite genre is historical fiction and The Lady of the Rivers is now a prime example in why I perfer historical fiction over other genres. The story of Jaquetta was throughly researched and because of that you were able to make events in her life so much more understood and known seeing that I bought the book in a diffrent country. For example in scene where Jaquetta tells William de la Pole that she married without the King's permision was very tense and would have seemed to have been poor planning but since her resoning was explained early on I was able to understand where she was coming from and why she made this desicion.
          I also found it intresting that monarchy at this time period was not as strong as I thought it was. For example King Henry VI and Queen Margaret had to fight to keep thier power through out the land and to crush revolts against the crown. I suppose kings and queens in this time period needs to be older and wiser to understand what must be done to keep the crown then of the age that King Henry VI and Queen Margaret were. By the way you were writing about Margaret's actions it seems that without Jaquetta the English Monarchy might be diffrent then it is today because of the advice that Jaquetta gave to Maragaret.
          When I read your authors note I was surprised that you were researching her daughter and not Jaquetta first but I admire that you did change to Jaquetta because many strong independent females are not mentioned that often in this time period in history and instead over shadowed by other powerful figures. I also found the way you inserted Jaquetta's magical family history to be very interesting because I read the tale of Melusina before reading this book and I wondered if the tale continued through the three children that Melusina had and I was surprised to find the answer in this book.
          I look forward to reading your other historical fiction novels and will be hunting them down in the library very soon, particularly The Other Boleyn Girl because I find Queen Elizabeth I's mother, Anne Boleyn's, family to be very mysterious because I don't know much about it. I also look forward to reading the other Cousins' War novels as well.

                                                                                                          Sincerely,
                                                                                                                  L.T.