Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Book Review: "The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas" by Alison Weir


Genre: History
Source: NetGalley
Publication Date: Jan 12, 2016 by Ballantine Books

"Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Her mother was a Queen, her father an Earl, and she herself was the granddaughter, niece, cousin and grandmother of monarchs.

Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal not just once but twice by falling in love with unsuitable men. Fortunately the marriage arranged for her turned into a love match." - Goodreads

I don't even know where to start with my thoughts on this book. I really enjoy reading about the Tudors and the Plantagenets, but honestly this book was too much for me.

Let's start with the things I did not like.
  • Too many dates and people - I was having a really hard time following the story since there were just too many things for me to remember and new people were introduced on almost every single page of the book. I felt like drowning in all this information, which sometimes I did not feel was necessary.
  • All the presents and values - I really like reading what people used to have in the past. All these amazing gowns and jewelry and magnificent manors. What I don't like is receiving this information in the form of a list. And all of the money that were always tossed around - I did not need that information.
  • Poems - I appreciate them, because they are supposed to give some kind of an insight on Margaret's character, but I was having a really hard time understanding them. Ancient English - not my thing.
Now, you may be wondering, what the hell I liked...
  • I really liked that there was a lot of information about the events and the political intrigues. Yes, they were there to compensate for a lack of detailed info about Margaret herself, but I don't really mind, because they were interesting for me.
  • I also appreciate all of the research that was done by the author for the creation of this book. Not only did she manage to portray some really interesting facts, but also came up with her own conclusions and speculations about the character of Margaret, as well as of other high-ranking figures.
Overall, I don't think this book was really for me, but I'll be sure to check out some of the author's historical fiction works. With all of the knowledge she has, I expect them to be something great.

2 comments:

  1. I love reading about the Tudor age, but yeah having stuff in HUGE depth can be a bit distracting at times :) Love the Taylor Swift gif!
    Geraldine @ Corralling Books

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