The Rose Without a Thorn

After a Plaidy hiatus, I started re-reading The Rose Without a Thorn (Katherine Howard) today.

This was one of the first Plaidy novels I read. In the several years that have passed since, I've read a number of other novels about Katherine Howard, and I must say that this one surpasses most of them. Philippa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance (in which Katherine is one of three major female characters) does do a good job of capturing Katherine's youthful giddiness, I think, but Plaidy's approach--a subdued Katherine looking back upon her life and her mistakes--works well too.

While in the bookstore the other day, I admired the new edition of The Reluctant Queen (Anne Neville, Richard III's queen). As I have a perfectly readable, albeit homely, mass-market paperback of it, I couldn't bring myself to splurge on the new edition, but I'll be re-reading the novel soon for this blog anyway. (Daphne shows several editions on her blog. I have the fourth cover (the one showing Anne with the great big pointy hat. Watch out for breezes, Anne!) Arleigh has also reviewed this one.

Here's a review by Pat of The Italian Woman--one I haven't read before, and want to.

Finally, Crown Historical is running a Jean Plaidy competition in conjunction with the Historical Fiction bulletin board, a great site for lovers of historical fiction from all authors. Check it out here. There's still time to join the board and enter! The prize? Something we all love--books!

A Plaidy Cover Artist

While surfing the other day, I came across a mention of this site, by cover artist Elaine Gignilliat. Gignilliat mostly does covers for romance novels, but she's also illustrated other genres, including several Plaidy novels, the cover illustrations of which can be seen (and purchased) here. Gignilliat did illustrations for some Philippa Carr and Victoria Holt novels (including The Queen's Confession) as well.

This was a fun site to visit, especially the section on Creating a Book Cover (which shows a Victoria Holt cover in the making).

He's Everywhere

While working on an article about Jean Plaidy (yay! finished), I had cause to look at some of my old Fawcett editions of Plaidy, and I suddenly realized something (OK, it's hot here, and I'm a bit slow): the covers of The Queen From Provence, Hammer of the Scots, and The Vow on the Heron all used the same model for the king. He's doing different things on each cover, of course--preparing to smooch a gorgeous blonde on a white horse in The Queen From Provence, nibbling the ear of a fiery brunette on Hammer of the Scots, and angling for a kiss from a blonde with a Farrah Fawcett hairdo while standing aboard a ship on The Vow on the Heron--but it's definitely the same chap, with crisply curling blondish brown hair and a little moustache. On Hammer of the Scots, he has a short beard. He's wearing the same crown on all three covers.

Sadly, my digital photography skills haven't yet allowed me to get a nice close-up, but until I do, you may be able to get a hint from these covers:

Vintage Snark

While researching my Plaidy article, I came across a December 7, 1947, review in The New York Times of Beyond the Blue Mountains, Plaidy's first novel written under the Plaidy name. (Edit: Make that the second Plaidy novel. Thanks, Sarah!)

The reviewer is rather unimpressed: "This novel sings of illegitmate ladies and philandering men, and a long-winded, blowsy song it is. . . . This novel of generations is here coupled with a sampling of Amber-class heroines to produce a fiction so foolish and formula that its sponsors have seen fit in one place to label the creation 'A Romantic Novel.' It should offer limited appeal exclusively to readers of whatever that is."

Whew! And you thought historical fiction took some licks nowadays!

After three more paragraphs, in which the reviewer (identified as "B.V.W.") proceeds to give away most of the plot, he or she (odds are that it's a he) concludes, "It is pleasant to note, from the author's picture on the dust jacket, that she bears a winsome and charming resemblance to the British musical-comedy actress Jessie Matthews. Perhaps Miss Plaidy has missed her calling."

Well, no. Rather, millions of Plaidy sales later, it appears that B.V.W. sure missed the boat.

Review Roundup

Royalty Reviews has put up several reviews of some Plaidy novels over the past few days, including this one. And Daphne has finished her reading of the Plantagenet saga with the review here.

And here's a review of The Rose Without a Thorn by Acr2angel. And, on the subject of Henry VIII's wives, another review of The Lady in the Tower by Alita.

Finally, here's a review that Arleigh did in May of Passage to Pontefract.

If I've missed a recent one, please let me know!

I scored a couple of Plaidys on ebay the other day and am reading Red Rose of Anjou, about Margaret of Anjou. Interesting, as it covers the period of the Wars of the Roses I'm least familiar with, that up to the Duke of York's death.

The Lady in the Tower

I finished The Lady in the Tower today, about, of course, Anne Boleyn. I suspect this book is to Plaidy what The Other Boleyn Girl is to Philippa Gregory: if you've read one Plaidy book, this is probably it. It's one of the later Plaidys, published in the United States in 1986, and not surprisingly, it was one of the first two Plaidy novels to be reissued by Three Rivers Press. Judging from the very rumpled state of my library copy, it's been quite a popular read.

This was actually a re-read of this novel for me. I read it several years ago, when I was just getting interested in historical fiction in a big way, and it's probably the first novel I'd read about Anne Boleyn. Having read a number of novels about Anne since, I was pleased to see how well it compared to more recent efforts.

Like many other novels about doomed queens, The Lady in the Tower is narrated in the first person by the heroine on the eve of her execution. (Question: are there novels about doomed kings told in the first person on the eve of the hero's execution? I can't remember a single one if so.) Anne looks back to her childhood at Hever, her intellectually stimulating time at the French court, her thwarted romance with Henry Percy, and her relationship with Henry VIII. She tries to understand the mistakes she's made, and though she judges Henry harshly, she's not inclined to let herself off easily either.

Those who have been accustomed to more sensational portraits of Anne won't find one here. Anne doesn't poison anyone, sleep with anyone besides Henry, engage in wild outdoors sex, or speak in modern American slang. Plaidy's prose, however, is rather flat compared to that of some of her more recent counterparts. There's some clunky dialogue, in particular that between Anne and her brother, and the chapters in which Henry schemes to divorce Catherine tend to drag, though a reader who is new to the history involved might not think so. The first person narrative imposes its own restrictions; by being limited to Anne's perspective, we miss out on other potentially fascinating ones, such as those of Anne's male courtiers.

Still, Plaidy tells an absorbing story, and her Anne is a sympathetic, yet flawed heroine. Those who are new to the story of Henry VIII and his six wives would be well advised to start their fictional journey here.

Sweatin' to the Plaidy, and a Question

It being a holiday today, I spent the afternoon at the gym. This time I had the foresight to bring a book along--Jean Plaidy's The Lady in the Tower. I read it several years ago, but I thought it'd be interesting to re-read it to see how its portrayal of Anne Boleyn stacked up to later novels about her.

Usually I stop after about 10 minutes on the treadmill, not because I get tired but because I get bored. This time, however, with Plaidy for company, I managed over 20 minutes, and a full mile! (For the record, I can read about 28 pages of Plaidy per mile.) The moral here is that Jean Plaidy is not only a diverting read, but good for your health.

Anyway, I'm working on an article about the reissue of Jean Plaidy's novels. In conjunction with that, I have some questions to pose to you Plaidy fans out there: What appeals to you about Plaidy's novels? Which ones would you like to see reissued? Do you have a preference for Plaidy's novels over other historical fiction, and if so, why? Inquiring minds (or my mind, anyway) want to know!