The White Princess is the fifth book in Philippa Gregory’s Cousins’ War series, each book focusing on a different female lead; this book being the POV of Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville (whose story was told in The White Queen), and wife to Henry VII. The book begins after the battle at Bosworth field, and as interpreted by Ms. Gregory has young Elizabeth pining over her lost lover, Richard (her uncle!!) he lost the battle and died before they could be married and have a son called Arthur. Elizabeth, mom and all those younger sisters come to court with the expectation that she’s going to marry Henry Tudor the winner at Bosworth Field, but Henry and mom Margaret Beaufort don’t seem to be in any hurry--->>>real spoiler ebil Margaret wants to make sure Elizabeth can conceive a child before the happy nuptials and orders Henry to rape her. If Elizabeth can't conceive, he'll take choice #2, younger sister Cecily. "I'm not very fond of spoiled meats, I don't want another man's leaving. The thought of Richard the Usurper pawing you about and you fawning on him for the crown makes me quite sick."A peach of a man is Henry, and mother Margaret is some piece of work. Elizabeth, being spineless and dull as dishwater (at least as written by Ms. Gregory), makes the best of her marriage popping out the heir and the spare and other boring stuff for 300 or so pages. "Two years pass before we conceive another child...""Instead I will be the shape that my husband's mother wants: a rounded fertile pear of a woman, a vessel for Tudor seed, a pot.There is still the mystery of the fate of Elizabeth’s younger brothers Edward and Richard, who disappeared from the Tower of London never to be seen again, and not a body to be found anywhere. Which of course leads to people pretending to be one of the lost boys (or are they pretenders?), including one Perkin Warbeck. What does a loving sister to do if she recognizes her lost brother (or does she recognize him?), and does her loyalty go with the sibling or her husband and father of her children?Should be interesting stuff, right? Well in this case, with this author, it’s not. Boring, boring, boring. The Elizabeth that Ms. Gregory gives us is just a spineless doormat who parrots everything her husband says – no original dialogue to be found coming out of her mouth. Add to that mix the author’s very bad habit of clubbing the reader over the head with people’s names and titles (does someone really think in their private thoughts about their half-brother as “Thomas Grey, Mother's boy”?), and of course the mind-numbing repetitiveness of her prose all makes for a very underwhelming read. Speaking of that repetition, I did get a giggle out of this quote from Margaret:“Richard put them to death," she repeats, as if repetition will make it so.I guess if you repeat something enough times, folks will start to believe it’s true like so many folks believe Ms. Gregory’s version of history is the real deal. Not. And the big twist over the fate of the young princes in the tower and who done them in as Ms. Gregory sees it? ---->>>>real spoiler this time goes back to a curse mother and daughter put on the murderer of the two boys, that whoever it was would lose a son and his line would die out with a virgin Queen. Bah!Do I have anything good to say about it? The font was large with generous spacing between lines, very short chapters and at least we didn't have Henry VII drinking the blood of sanguine young men.From the author's notes (two whole pages!):This book does not claim to reveal the truth either: it is a fiction based on many studies of these fascinating times and gives, I hope, an in into the untold stories and the unknown characters with affection and respect.Sorry, but Henry Tudor didn't exactly get much respect in the first part of this book :/
