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The Last White Rose, by Alison Weir

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Historical novel based on the life of Elizabeth of York. The story starts with Elizabeth being woken by her mother when she’s about four years old. Quietly, but hurriedly, they are fleeing the castle for sanctuary. Edward’s rule is being challenged and his queen fears for the safety of his heirs. They flee to the church where they are housed until Elizabeth’s father returns victorious. Unfortunately Elizabeth’s life is lived in fear of invaders and later, imposters. When her beloved father dies at an early age, he appoints his trusted ally Richard as regent for his young sons, Edward and York. But it soon becomes apparent that Richard has designs on the throne for himself. Elizabeth’s mother again takes her children into sanctuary. Richard’s men come and demand that her youngest son, York, be taken to the Tower to join his older brother Edward (Ned), in preparation for his coronation. Reluctantly, the queen agrees. Neither of the princes are ever seen or heard from again. Richard seizes the throne and keeps it until Henry VII returns from exile, rouses the people, and kills Richard in battle. Part of Henry’s plan to establish his reign is to marry Elizabeth, who is the rightful heir to the throne, except that at the time women could not rule alone.

During her life, Elizabeth is haunted by the fact that no one has ever discovered what happened to her brothers, for if either of them could be found alive, Henry’s claim to the throne could be undermined. More than once, imposters mount insurrections which have to be quelled. Elizabeth would dearly love to see her brothers again, but she fears what would happen to her husband, and their children if either of her brothers should come forward. She and Henry have numerous offspring, the first boy, Edward, is good, studious and pious, but sickly. He is removed at an early age from court, to study and train, but his health remains poor. He is betrothed to the princess of Spain, in a royal chess match which allies England with a potential enemy. But Edward’s health is misdiagnosed and he dies soon after the marriage. Fate has played a big hand here, because the spare is Henry VIII. From birth a boisterous, lively and ambitious child, he is well suited to being a king.

One thing I found hard to follow in the book was all the different characters with the same name. Many Elizabeth’s, Margaret’s, Edward’s, Henry’s. Not being British, it all got rather confusing at times. Still, a good story. I look forward to reading more of Alison Weir’s works in the near future.

Barkskins, by Annie Proulz

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Published 2016

The author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain now tells the store of two immigrants to the New World. Both are from France and have signed on as indentured servants to a man who puts them to work chopping trees in what is now Canada. People at that time believed the forests to be indestructible, since the wilderness was so vast compared to what they had seen in the Old World. The native Americans did not cut the forests and made their homes from animal hides instead of lumber. Since they were at least partially nomadic they did not want immovable homes made of wood. Even though the original Americans had been on the land for many centuries, the forests were virgin. The timber was cut mostly for export back to the Old World, much of it for ships’ masts.

Rene Sel and Charles Duquet are the two men whose stories the author follows through many generations. Rene Sel remains with his master for many years and is rewarded with a piece of land of his own. He is forced to marry his master’s cook when the master’s new wife believes he is having an affair. But the marriage is a happy one, and their children go on to inhabit America. They do not achieve much wealth since they are part Native American and during that time were largely treated as slaves or at best, expendable. Charles Duquet, on the other hand, is a rebel from the very beginning. He is plagued with ill health, in particular suffering from bad teeth. When the pain becomes overwhelming, he runs away into the forest where Sel and the master can hear his painful moans. No attempt is made to recapture him, the forest at night being deemed too dangerous to enter. Years later Rene hears of a man with bad teeth, or no teeth, having had them all pulled, who has made a reputation for himself as a fur trader, one of the best in the new country. When the old master hears of this, he is enraged and sets out to find and recapture his servant, who has not worked his time to pay for his passage. Duquet goes on to found a wealthy family, trading in furs and timber from the new world.

Life during this time in Canada and North America is pretty dismal. Lawlessness and corruption are rife. The book was a struggle to get through at times, because the life it portrayed was so fraught with peril from all sides. I did get a new awareness of the plight of the Native Americans, how much they gave and how much was taken from them at the beginning of colonization. Disease killed many, but greed killed many more. This is a very long book. It reminded me in some ways of Jane Smiley’s saga of the Iowa farm family, but hers is modern day and split into three novels.

Ed King, by David Guterson

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Published 2011

Ed King is an orphan. He didn’t find this out until his younger brother Simon was diagnosed with prostate cancer and Ed gets genome tested. Although he is an orphan, Ed has developed the premier search engine on the planet. He has a personal assistant (virtual) named Cybil whom he relies on for hashing through information. Cybil is the one who tells him, after her analysis, that he and Simon are not biologically related.

The book starts out with Ed’s parents, a married man whose wife has been hospitalized and the au pair who comes to take charge of the house and two children during her absence. Diane is just a teenager, an exchange student from Britain whose mum was a prostitute and whose dad she never knew. The married man, Walter Cousins, has a good job and knows better but succumbs to the enticement of a young girl in his house day after day. After a few months the wife comes home and Diane is no longer needed. But by this time she is pregnant with Walter’s child. He makes arrangements for her to deliver the baby and give it up for adoption. She has a couple of days to make her final decision, and during this time she leaves the hospital and then abandons the child on someone’s doorstep in an upscale neighborhood. She writes Walter demanding that he provide for his child by sending her two hundred and fifty dollars every month to a post office box. She then finds a cheap place to live and watches for her next opportunity.

Ed, meanwhile, is adopted by loving parents and has a good life until, during his wild teenage years he runs a car off the road in the middle of now where and the man in it is killed. It happens to be Walter Cousins, his father, although he has no idea of the relationship. This brings Ed’s wild days to a screeching stop and he begins college in earnest. No one knows about how the accident happened and Ed carries this with him eventually relying on prescription drugs to bring him out of his fog.

Time marches on and Diane goes from high class prostitute to the wife of a wealthy man. All she has to do is keep herself looking good and she does this with so much gusto that she eventually goes to the hospital for plastic surgery. For nine years she has been married and has told her husband that she is not able to have children. While she is in the hospital he sees that she is on the pill, and has been lying to him all along. So ends her lush life, with a small settlement and the money she’s saved from Walter’s extortion she sets up again and starts dealing cocaine, never taking it herself but supplying to a higher end clientelle.

As unlikely as it seems, Diane eventually meets up with Ed King and they fall in love. I’m going to leave the story there because the ending is worth reading through for. I am not sure I can quite believe it, but it’s interesting and possibly plausible.

Varina, by Charles Frazier

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I picked up this book at the library because of how much I enjoyed Cold Mountain, also by Frazier. The title character was the wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Both books portray the end of the civil war. This story is told by an African American who visits Varina long after the war, in Saratoga Springs. He was rescued by Varina when he was a child being beaten by a shopkeeper for vagrancy. Varina took him in and kept him with her own children until her party was captured by the Yankees. They were trying to make their way to Florida and from there, on to Cuba. I found the story somewhat hard to follow since it doesn’t flow from beginning to end but goes backwards and forwards to cover most of Varina’s life, at least from her teenage years to old age. I had never even heard of her although I of course assumed that Jefferson Davis had a wife and children, since most men of his time, especially elected officials, did. She was quite remarkable in her own right, if this story is to be believed. While not written as non-fiction, it draws on facts, how much is real and how much invented we do not know from this tale alone. I was struck again, as in the prior book Cold Mountain, at the breakdown of society in the aftermath of the war, how it was impossible to tell where anyone’s loyalties lay. How desperate most people were and yet how willing to risk their own lives for a principle many still believed in. Despite the confusion of the time-line I enjoyed the book very much and look forward to the next title by this author.

The President is Missing, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

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The new book by the former President and Patterson is of course a thriller. I’m not usually a fan of this type of work, it goes too fast for my taste. I like novels that are more complex but for what it is, it was a good tale. It kept me guessing until the end. A bit far fetched, or at least I hope it is. The President has to go under cover to save the country from cyber crimes so devastating that the United States would be reduced to decades of poverty, its infrastructure destroyed, and possibly all out class warfare. He knows there is a traitor in his cabinet but he doesn’t have any idea of who it might be. The attackers are part of a jihadist group but they can’t do it alone, which means that some state government is involved. I hope that since the former President is writing about this type of scenario, steps have already been taken to prevent the disaster he describes in the book. Worth the read, you’ll be finished in no time.

The Outlander, by Gil Adamson

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Published 2007

A truly enjoyable book, the Outlander, by Gillian Adamson tells the story of a young widow’s flight from the avengers of her husband’s murderer. From the very beginning of the book the widow is declared to be the murderer, but just what happened is not clear. The widow doesn’t flee immediately but waits until the murder of her husband is discovered and she is blamed. At the beginning of the novel she is being pursued by her husband’s brothers, two red headed twins who become almost evil itself throughout the chapters of the book. Against all odds the widow manages to escape, leaving the reader hopeful at the close of each terrifying, breathless effort that she will find civilization and someone to help her. This appears to be the case when she is taken in by an elderly, wealthy mad woman she meets in a church, who is willing to harbor her, but who cannot withstand the might of the brothers who track her to the woman’s house. As the widow flees again and again, more of her past is revealed. In flashbacks we are told about her innocent upbringing by her widowed lawyer father and her paternal grandmother, a wealthy life which does not prepare her for the one she endures after her ill-thought-out marriage to her husband. Right away she is taken to a floorless hut without even a window, in a wilderness which had been described to her family as a fine house. Here she struggles to scrub and cook for a man who takes no more thought for her than if she were another mule added to his list of assets. After their baby dies within a few weeks of being born in the same bed he was conceived in, the widow is afflicted with madness. But while the widow is undeniably mentally disturbed in some respects, in others the craziness of her thoughts may lead to her salvation.
Adamson’s poetry is very evident in the writing of the book and although some of the words were lost on me, the writing is compelling. The style of beginning in the middle, during the flight of the widow, and then telling the beginning as the book proceeds along to its end is thoughtful and intriguing. One doesn’t know what actually happened regarding the murder until near the end of the book, lending it the air of a mystery as well as drama.
I can highly recommend this book, you will enjoy it.