More confusing than the Wars of the Roses

Number 9 is Trinity, book 2 in Conn Iggulden's Wars of the Roses series.

This one starts off pretty interesting, as Henry VI comes out of his catatonia (modern efforts to diagnose Henry's mental illness have suggested schizophrenia) and becomes quite a strong-willed man. Completely different from what he's been before. He feels he must take back his kingdom from York and Salisbury (who have been running things since he's been ill), and so launches on a procession of his land, showing the people of England that he is able to rule again (this was his extremely capable and wily wife Margaret's idea). Of course though, York and Salisbury don't take kindly to what they see as them being forced to step aside; they want recognition for their help, and they feel that Henry is being unfairly poisoned against them by other councillors, which they kinda are, but it's still a pretty flimsy excuse for them to gather an army and go meet up with Henry at the town of St. Albans so they can talk it out.

So that goes badly.

Basically, this book deals a lot more with battles and political machinations, and we get more heavily into the Percy/Neville feud... which felt rather misplaced. Only a little time was spent on getting to know Warwick further (and given how important he's going to become, I think we need some more building there), and there was a very unfortunate lack of spymaster Derry Brewer. I did appreciate that we spent some more time with Edward of York, that's kinda important too.

While I didn't like this one as much as Stormbird, I'm still enjoying the series, and Margaret was still kick ass as she does all she conceivably can to keep and win back her husband's throne, although really her motivation is now to secure it for her son.

Begin Again

2015!

Thank goodness, because 2014 kinda stunk in the reading dept. I vow to do better this year!

In fact, I am doing pretty darn good out of the gate, I've already read four books!

The first three, are the Riyria Revelations, which is made up of Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire and the Heir of Novron, all by Michael J. Sullivan. These are not genre changing or earth shattering, but they're fun. And they have a fairly nice happy ending, which is sometimes a good thing. The central characters are thieves extrodinaire Hadrian and Royce, and they have a nice, buddy movie vibe going for them. There's good action, good capers, a larger story that they of course become part of, and a couple of good, strong female characters. I enjoyed 'em and will probably continue on with the Riyria Chronicles at some point.

Book number four is Stormbird (Wars of the Roses: Book One) by Conn Iggulden. Poor, sickly, naive Henry VI was just not cut out to be king. We're given a rather pathetic (but sympathetic) portrayal of him. We meet fierce, loyal and indomitable Margret of Anjou shortly before her marriage to Henry. The Duke of York is a little one dimensional and definitely set out as the bad guy, so it would seem (so far) that Iggulden is a Lancastrian. His best character though is the one he invented; Derry Brewer, Henry's spymaster. This book ends with King Henry's mental illness rendering him basically catatonic for months and Parliament appointing Richard, Duke of York (a man with an even better claim to the throne than the King has), as Lord Protector of the Realm. I'll be moving on to the next book in this series. I do love me some Wars of the Roses.