A Tale of Margaret Pole

The King's Curse by Philippa Gregory

I have read all of the books by this author in her Cousin's War and Tudor series because I love her work. She thoroughly researches her subjects, and I'd like to believe that things happened fairly closely to the way she wrote them.

This particular book is about Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. Margaret is a Plantagenet, which means that just being herself could put her in danger during the Tudor rule. At the beginning of the book, she is in charge, with her husband, of overseeing Arthur, Prince of Wales. When Katherine of Aragon comes to England, she befriends her, and they remain friends until Katherine's death. She sees Henry VIII come to the throne, and is the one who is responsible for breaking the news of his children's births. She is also the governess of Mary Tudor, until she moves to Hatfield to serve Elizabeth.

As I said, just being who she is, she and her family are always suspected of treason. At the end of her life, two of her sons and she herself are sent to the Tower of London. Her oldest son and heir is executed for treason. Margaret herself is executed, even though no charges were ever brought against her. Her execution, of itself, was fairly interesting. The executioner was inept, and did not behead her on the first try. She got up, ran and had to be chased, all the while the executioner is hacking at her. It took about ten blows to finally cause her death.

Margaret led an interesting life, and I am glad this book gave me insight into said life.

Boring Kidnapping Story

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

I saw this one day at the bookstore with my daughter. It was on one of those YA Must Read tables, so I read the back cover. The premise sounded good, so I bought it.

In a nutshell, Gemma is travelling with her parents. They have a layover in Bangkok, where she meets a guy at the airport coffee shop. His name is Ty. Ty drugs her coffee, and kidnaps Gemma, whisking her off to the middle of nowhere Australia. Turns out, Ty has been stalking Gemma since he was 19 and she was 10, which is not creepy at all. *sarcasm* She's now 16, so he stalked her for six years, all the while building a house in the middle of nowhere. He was convinced she would ultimately fall in love with him. Sadly, I know it happens, and it did here too. She does manage to get away, and this book is Gemma's letter to Ty about the time he had her.

Really, this sounded good. I just wish it was as good as it sounded. I was more than 200 pages in before I got to the "I can't put this book down" point. No one should have to be that invested in a book for it to be good. I have to wonder how it won so many book awards, as boring as it was. I am happy to say though, there was nothing sexual, so I can let my daughter read this. Only a couple of f-bombs dropped, if you have a problem with that. Seriously though, I wouldn't waste my time.

Based on a poem

His Last Duchess by  Gabrielle  Kimm

This book is  based on the poem "My Last  Duchess " by Robert  Browning,  which was  based on historical  events.  In this story,  Lucrezia de Medici is married off to Alonso, Duke of Ferrara. He cannot seem to  consummate  their marriage,  but blames her. In order to get  an heir, he plots her death so he can marry elsewhere.

In the meantime,  Lucrezia  falls in love with  a  painter who came with Fra Pandolf to paint a fresco and later her portrait. The painter gets wind of the duke's plan, and tries to  save Lucrezia.

If you've read the poem, you think you  know the story. What  if you're  wrong?