The Red Queen Book Review

So I just finished reading The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. I'm a sucker for a good Gregory novel because I have this weird fascination with English monarchs. I would blame Game of Thrones but I think I became entranced when I saw The Other Boleyn Girl (a movie based on a novel by Gregory.)

If you've read The White Queen, you'll already be familiar to the traitorous and cold-hearted Margret Tudor.  The Red Queen tells her side of the cousins war (which is actually inspired Games of Thrones) and you surprisingly start to side with her claim to the throne- well, at least I did.

The pious child bride bore her first and only son Henry Tudor when she was just 13. You start to understand that her piety is the one thing that makes her realize her self worth in a society that deems her 'less than' because of her gender, regardless of her high born status. Her estranged mother convinces her the one thing she can do for the family is to continue the name by bear children.

Gregory does an excellent job spinning what seems to be a back-stabbing friend in The White Queen into a tormented young mother determined to get her son on the throne. Even with all that said, Margret is still a less likable person than Elizabeth, but i guess that is no fault of her own when you see the childhood (or lack thereof) she experienced.