Title: The Kingmaker’s Daughter            

Author: Philippa Gregory

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Touchstone  

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 417

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Spies, poison, and curses surround her…

Is there anyone she can trust?

The Kingmaker’s Daughter is the gripping story of the daughters of the man known as the “Kingmaker,” Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick: the most powerful magnate in fifteenth-century England. Without a son and heir, he uses his daughters, Anne and Isabel as pawns in his political games, and they grow up to be influential players in their own right. In this novel, her first sister story since The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory explores the lives of two fascinating young women.

At the court of Edward IV and his beautiful queen, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne grows from a delightful child to become ever more fearful and desperate when her father makes war on his former friends. Married at age fourteen, she is soon left widowed and fatherless, her mother in sanctuary and her sister married to the enemy. Anne manages her own escape by marrying Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but her choice will set her on a collision course with the overwhelming power of the royal family and will cost the lives of those she loves most in the world, including her precious only son, Prince Edward. Ultimately, the kingmaker’s daughter will achieve her father’s greatest ambition.

Review:

This book was so much fun to read! I don’t know how Gregory does it, but her War of the Roses novels and Tudor novels are just so good! Maybe it’s because I already love learning and reading about these historical figures, but I think it also is because Gregory has a way of creating empathy for her main characters!

The story is about Anne Neville, who’s father, Warwick, helped put the York’s on the throne and then tried to take them off! She got caught up in the Cousins War not because she really cared about who was on the throne (even though let’s be real, she didn’t mind if it was her on the throne), but because her father and husband got her involved. It just goes to show how women had no real power back then and how they had to go along with whatever the head of household said, so either their father or husband. They were expected to obey.

This book is quite different from the White Queen and kinda switched the roles of the protagonists and antagonists, which was fun! It’s cool to see different perceptions on the War of the Roses and how all these different players got involved and why! I definitely recommend this book if you’re a fan of historical fiction!

Happy reading!