Thursday 4 October 2018

The Last Plantagenet? By Jennifer C. Wilson

Shortlisted for Book of the Month



Novella / Time Travel
1400s
England

What a delightful novella. A quick read - about an hour and a half - but one that certainly gives plenty and lingers long after you’ve finished. We know from the first line that Kate is going to experience time travel; it is where she goes and what she does there that awaits us as we read on. As the title suggests, we meet the last Plantagenet, King Richard III, just days before the battle of Bosworth. Kate must come to terms with knowing what she knows and being unable to warn Richard, a king she comes to know very quickly as a man.

This novella is a labour of love – it is not a book someone less passionate about Richard could write. It is rather fanciful and probably tells us a lot about the writer as much as it does Richard. Her inspiration is made very clear at the end and maybe with the passing of time the abruptness of that inspiration will be mellowed. This is one of the new wave of rehabilitation novels for Richard III showing him in a much more sympathetic light, and personally, I am all for it.

As with previous full length novels from this author, this is less accurate history and more ‘what if’ but there is nothing wrong with a dose of unashamed escapism, and this novella delivers that in spades.

© Nicky Galliers

 


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