Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, Margaret Beaufort, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Jane Shore, Kate Haute, Elizabeth of York, and the indomitable Margaret of Anjou.

Mastery of these is often a lot to ask of a regular novelist and I think that sometimes it’s good to just quit while you’re ahead. The Battle of Towton – renowned for its brutality and the sheer number of causalities, the largest in English history after the Battle of the Somme – is summarised in a few paragraphs as a glorious and apparently bloodless victory for York. We get the “gossip” of Catherine de Valois’s first Tudor son, Edmund, really being fathered by Edmund Beaufort instead of Owen Tudor (a story that first appeared in the 20th century, by the way – no one, not even Richard III when he was trying to smear Henry VII and claimed Owen Tudor was a bastard, thought Edmund Tudor was a bastard, much less a Beaufort bastard).P.S I really loved William Oldhall - a minor character but one I loved seeing on the page each time and really felt for when he died. The sprightly cover, present tense of this book really harmonised her business-like characterisation of Cecily with the snappiness of the prose - yet somehow this novel still felt more in-period than some other novels that try way harder? It also probably has to do something with the fact that I’m not a Yorkist or Ricardian, and as the story progresses past 1447, it takes a distinctive Yorkist bent in narrative choices. The version of Cecily Neville that Garthwaite has crafted is fierce, fearless, inspirational, empowered.

Thus far, I can only say Lytton-Bulwer’s purple prose was successful, with Jarman’s coming close as well. She also appears to have chosen her timeline well enough to not give us ‘as you know bobs’, with the main characters digest the aftermath of each news and council meeting as they came.Where Cecily is fierce and combative, Richard is conciliatory and calm, reluctant to show open defiance. While Richard is released without Cecily’s intervention, the next few years sees open warfare break out between Lancaster and York.

As the Duchess of York, Cecily uses her power in any and all ways she can: from securing marriages for her children into Duke's homes to befriending members of powerful French households to back their peaceful negotiations under the guise of a turn around the grounds, 'women's activities' become an opportunity to suggest an idea and influence an outcome. Masterful and majestic; England's unspoken history told by one brilliant woman through the life of another. I really like that the focus is on strong women, there are plenty of them in the Middle Ages but history (written for much of the time by men 😁) has chosen to ignore them until recent years. Talk predominates in the first part of the book, but as York mounts direct challenges to Marguerite and the king’s favorites the action increases and the story is told with some wonderful scenes.Cecily Neville begins her story in 1424, aged nine, when she is betrothed to Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. Plot: We follow Cecily Neville Duchess of York (and only Cecily Neville Duchess of York - keep this in mind as it’s important later on) from her tween years all the way to her son Edward’s ascension in 1461. The sack of Ludlow is presented as incredibly traumatic and harrowing while the Yorkist victories are remarkably bloodless. In 'Cecily', debut author Annie Garthwaite offers a vivid retelling of the first stages of the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses, through the eyes of Cecily, Duchess of York - wife to Richard, Duke of York, mother to two kings, and one of the few major players to live through and bear witness to the entire conflict.