My Five Word TL:DR Review: Careful What You Wish For

I haven’t read anything by Philippa Gregory for a while so when I saw Royal Witch pop up on Netgalley I was definitely intrigued. I think, first and foremost, I was interested in the ‘witch’ aspects of this tale because I seem to be on a witchy reading streak at the moment so I will mention that those aspects make up only a small part of this tale (but more about that later). I am happy to say that this story was intriguing and has piqued my interest in reading more from this period.

The story has three, little known, female characters from the middle ages although we predominantly focus on Eleanor Cobham. To be honest I haven’t read much from this period so it was a pleasant suprise just how intriguing this story was, it certainly propelled me into a search on the internet to read more about all the characters portrayed.

So, we meet Eleanor Cobham circa 1420, her mother dies and Eleanor takes the opportunity of a deathbed scene to skew her last wishes. Basically, her mother intended Eleanor for the nunnery, but Eleanor had different ideas and preferred to go to court. Her family being lesser nobles, in spite of her beautiful face, Eleanor is of lowly status and is positioned as a ladies maid to Jacqueline, Countess of Hainault, who is living in exile. At this point Eleanor believes in chivalry and love but those ideas soon begin to crumble.

I won’t elaborate too much on the plot but instead talk about what I enjoyed about this.

Having read Gregory before I knew that I could expect writing that would just draw me in. She is an expert at creating a time period. She doesn’t go over the top with purple prose and unnecessary detail but she has a way of creating the place and time in such a way that you feel like you’ve literally been dropped into the court with all the intrigue and politics. Elements that play into this story very well. This is a country at war, there is unrest and there are always people waiting in the wings hoping to profit. I guess I always think of the Tudors as being the most interesting period to read about but to be fair it seems that you can stick a pin in pretty much any of these periods and come up with scheming courtiers.

The characters. Eleanor is a difficult character to like but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy reading her story, and that’s a testament to Gregory’s writing. She has created a compelling story. A woman who dreams of becoming queen. In some respects I did have sympathy for Eleanor, she is used by the nobles, she falls in love with someone who rejects her and from then she becomes consumed with revenge which really does become the driving force behind so many of her actions. She has dreams of becoming Queen, it seems that nothing is ever enough for her and at the end she is once again used and deceived.

There are two other very strong female characters contained within the story, Margery Jourdemayne and obviously the Countess of Hainault. Their stories are all connected although Eleanor plays the main role.

The period itself also really feeds into the story. A time of unrest, plague and war, at the same time a period of deep superstition, thoughts of alchemy, birth charts and the like were heavily relied upon and yet at the same time ‘wise women’, women who know herblore and childbirth, were often scapegoats, deemed witches. There is an element of this to the story. Eleanor is drawn into nefarious plots that ultimately prove to be her fall from grace. So, as I mentioned above, this isn’t a book so much about witches, as it is about women being unjustly accused of such.

In conclusion, I enjoyed this and it certainly makes me want to dive into more history from periods that I haven’t yet explored.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

My rating 4 of 5 stars