The King's Curse - Philippa Gregory

There is absolutely no doubt about it! I LOVE PHILIPPA GREGORY! The fact that she writes about my favourite period of history - the Plantagnets and the Tudors just makes her even better in my eyes!! I am now up to speed and have read all of her historical novels and a couple of her modern novels too! If you've never read any Philippa Gregory do start with The Other Boleyn Girl that book was the making of me! And I always go back to it when I can!! Some of you may have seen the T.V show The White Queen but I can tell you her books are so much better!!

The King's Curse - Philippa Gregory.

The King's Curse is a follow on novel from the Cousins war series which includes: The White Queen, The Red Queen, Lady of the Rivers, The White Princess and finally The King's Curse. The King's Curse follows Margaret Plantagnet who was cousin to Elizabeth of York (Henry VII's Queen and Henry VIII's Mum) so she was always held in high regard in Henry VIII's court. Margarets younger brother Edward (Teddy) who would have been an heir to the throne after the Princes in the Tower went missing, was brutally executed in order that Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain would send their daughter Katherine of Aaragon to marry Arthur Prince of Wales. The Plantagnets have always been an unlucky family in history with in fighting but also external fighting and it was when Richard III was cut down on Bosworth that their line finished on the throne. However the family was always kept close even though the females in the line were married to lesser gentry to hide their name. This is what happened to Margaret as she was married to a staunch Tudor Supporter Sir Pole. She managed to live in obscurity until he died but she was thrust back into the limelight when she least expected it and she ended up losing her family, two sons were executed, one went slightly mad and was hid away, another son was out lawed to Padua and her daughter was hidden away from her by her husbands family in the hope she wouldn't be tainted too!

This book documents the ups and downs the Pole family encounter as they fall in and out of favour with the court as the Queens change from Katherine of Aaragon to Anne Boleyn to the beloved Jane Seymour to Anne of Cleves and even Katherine Howard. As the court favours one over the other it is dangerous if you are not on the winning side which is what Margaret finds and tries to keep her sons and daughter away from. She later struggles to keep her grandchildren away from this as a few work as her ladies in waiting at court and in the Tower but her grandsons accompany her into the Tower as they cannot risk them having a shot at the throne!

I thoroughly recommend all Philippa Gregory's books as she is an amazing writer who brings history alive and actually makes it interesting! I would love if she would go further back and look at some of the ladies who have been missed out in history ... Berengaria of Navarre (Richard the Lionhearts Wife) Eleanor of Aquitaine (Richards Mother/Henry II Wife) and even Matilda!

Everyone!! get yourselves these books and start reading!!!!


See you soon :)
Leanne x

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Child 2 - Ransom Riggs

Hellooo :)

So I've sat down to write allll of these reviews all in one go!! Otherwise they will not get done! I'm still enjoying a lot of free time to sit down and read as much as I want but the university year is closing in fast!! I've done pretty well as I have managed to get through 11 books so far and I'm half way through 12 and 13 and I have started 14!!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children 2 - Ransom Riggs


I can well and truly say that if you have never read the first Miss Peregrine then you are sorely missing out!! If you haven't ill do a quick overview. Jacob lives in modern day American he is a normal boy until his grandfather passes away! His grandfather leaves him with a lot of mysteries to solve and to find! Jacob as a result ends up going to England to a remote island to find a woman that his grandfather used to write to in the hope she would have some ideas about his grandfathers early life. It comes to pass that Jacob finds a secret world of children that never grow up and have peculiar powers - from floating girls, boys with bees inside them and girls who can make fire in their hands. And it turns out that Jacob is peculiar as was his grandfather!! He can see the giant monsters (that are usually invisible) which his grandfather could also see!! This changes Jacobs life. The loop that the children live in is threatened and their keeper Miss Peregrine is turned into a bird permanently. The end of the first book finishes with them leaving to go to London to find someone who can change her back!
Very action packed, I know!! And yes you can tell it is created for 'young adults' but I never listen to classification!!

So in the second book the children all get to London in pretty much one piece but being in 1940's lLondon comes at a price when the children end up being chased by scary invisible monsters, wrights dressed as Nazis and actual Nazis!! They travel London trying to get Miss Peregrine turned back human and they meet many peculiar children, people and animals along the way.

So overall both books are worth reading! They are both only short but they pack a punch. The best bit about the books is that they have pictures alongside the text. These pictures are all real vintage photos  that Riggs collects from carboot sales etc ... which he has then put together and then he has put a story together with it!! This is what makes the books even more genius! I don't think as a 'young adult' (which I still class myself as) being any younger I would not have appreciated this book in the same way that I do now! It has so much underlying in the book without the top story that even though it is an easy read it isn't necessarily shallow!!
Give them both a go! In the right order obviously and let me know how you get on!!!

See you soon :)
Leanne x

The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty

So I have cheated yet again!! This is the latest book that I have read however I have read others in between that I haven't reviewed yet!

But I just couldn't wait to do this one!! With the start if university looming I have been crazily trying to get some more dissertation reading done to no avail!! SO I have taken to reading what I want to read! I got some Amazon vouchers for my birthday so I spent them all on new books!! I got a total of about 24 books :) All ready to read alongside the other huge piles sitting waiting in my bedroom! (Sorry dissertation reading but you just cant compete with these!!!)

The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty

Usually I am not a person to like these sort of books! But after starting this book at 11 last night and finishing it today at 2 I cant help but say it completely drew me in and made me cry, want to scream and laugh simultaneously. I know I say this about a hell of a lot of books but it totally took over my life from the moment that I picked it up!! I did truly believe this was going to be a normal book about a husband cheating etccccccc ... BORING! But in fact this book was so cleverly written, intertwined and thought out that actually the book is amazing the characters are amazing and everything about it amazed me!!

Cecilia is the normal average housewife, with a doting husband and three girls. That is until she finds a letter her husband has written addressed to her but only to be opened after his death. Cecilia cant contain this desire to open the letter but when she does it turns their whole lives upside down and inside out. Forcing a chain of events that change their lives forever!

Tess is married to a husband that she loves, she has a cousin who is more like a sister to her , a son she adores, and they all have a successful business between them. She thinks her life is ideal until her husband and cousin sit her down for a conversation one night and in the heat of the moment she drags her only son to her mothers across the country and everything is changed for their lives, they will never be able to go back to how it was.

For Rachel one fateful afternoon in Autumn took her daughter away from her as she was strangled and left on a park slide to be found. Rachel has never gotten over this and as a result has never had the relationship she should have had with her son. Now her son is married with a son of his own, who he is now wanting to take from Australia to New York. Rachel doesn't know how she will live until she finds something startling which she believes will catch her daughters  killer. Rachels life is turned upside down when all these women's lives intertwine in Sydney in a place where they all grew up and all their children know each other.

When all these women's lives come together there are disastrous results for all involved. All three come out changed and not necessarily for the best or for the worst.

I can well and truly say that this 400 page book grips you from the very word go! And keeps you there long after you have finished. There is no way to describe how distraught I have felt when reading this book! How much my opinions of the people in the book  have changed throughout. It makes you think and consider your own lives and whether you would be able to make the decisions they do and would you react the same. If you found a letter from your husband/wife that was written to you to be read when they died, would you open it now? Or would you observe their wishes and ignore it until they did die?

The epilogue of the book also brings more questions into consideration, that a lot of the things that happened, were they predestined to be happy? Were they meant to happen for a reason? Does everything work out for at least one of them? Is there such a thing as karma? Should you really treasure the boring, mundane moments in life, as the exciting ones can be too much and can do too much damage?

I truly do recommend everyone to read this book and see what you think as I am struggling to describe how amazing it is in words at the moment!!

So as I have said I have read a few other books in between and I will be reviewing them also in between dissertation stuff and life!! I look forward to getting stuck into the rest of the books I got for my birthday and have Liane Moriarty's new book to read also!! I am extremely grateful that at the moment I have so much time to read and I am definitely making the most of it before the chaos that is life begins again in earnest at the end of the month!


See you soon :)
Leanne

Quiditch Through the Ages - J K Rowling.

Soo on my most recent visit to Warner Bros Studio Harry Potter Tour my lovely mum bought me two new books. One of them being Quidditch Through the Ages written by J K Rowling for Comic Relief.

Quidditch Through the Ages - J K Rowling.

 

 

I loveeeeee books like this!! When The Tales of Beedle the Bard came out I was veryy excited :D Little did I know that Rowling had written two other similar books.

I love books like this as they make Harry Potter feel real!! So if you dont know Quidditch Through the Ages is a book within a book. The characters of Harry Potter read Quidditch for their studies and reference.

 

 

Rowling has done a good job in recreating what this book would have been like. Including everything important in Quidditch, the positions, rules, fouls, players, famous teams, world cup .... which very much makes it like these football annuals that people get! However Quidditch Through the Ages covers everything from the 11th Century! It documents how Quidditch was created and how it has changed and progressed. It also gives you the American counter part which is also popular in Harry Potter!

 

Having books like this makes Harry Potter all the more real but it is also helping raise money for an amazing charity in Comic Relief.

 

Thanks for reading!

See you soon!

Leanne :)x

The Reapers are the Angels - Alden Bell

So this week is my BIRTHDAY so ive taken some time out to read what I want!! So here it is .... my one and only book that I had bought for my birthday!!!

So my Auntie always buys me books and she ALWAYS buys me the most amazing books ... she introduced me to Twilight and The Hunger Games before they were huge!! So when she bought me The Reapers are the Angels and the sequel I couldnt wait to start it!!

 

THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS - ALDEN BELL.

 

'Dying is easy - its living thats hard'

The Reapers follows a young girl called Temple, she us 15 years old when the book begins. The world as we know it is gone taken over by what coukd be called Zombies or in the book Slugs or Nightcrawlers. The majority of the American population is gone but if they are alive they exist in little communities living inside all the time. We follow Temple as she leaves her temporary home to travel.

 

Temple first hits one of these communities made up of 4 buildings. They have a school, shopping mall, rescue teams and protection teams. This community if trying to function like it used to. Unfortunately Temple gets herself in a bit if trouble after some sleaze  tries it on! She accidentally kills him! She runs with a bit of help ... but this guys brother us out for revenge.

After thus Temple isnt just running shes running from him! Along the way she meets travellers, a family in denial of what is happening and she picks up a great big 'dummy'. She gets captured by genetically enhanced hillbillies and she lives her life.

 

I wont spoil the rest of the story cos its something you have to read. I know it sounds like just another post apocalypse world but its not! Its a very well written and well executex book that keeps you turning the pages!! The young tough girl has been overdone in recent years (see The Hunger Games) bur I really did love Temple. She still had that but of human about her which just sets her apart. I cant wait to read the sequel cos I know its going to be just as good!!!

 

Look out for that but first .... I went to the Warner Bros Harry Potter Tour in London for my birthday and in the shop there I managed to buy some new books that I dont own!! Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quiditch Through the Ages. I have started reading these so look out for thsm too! Ive just bought Philippa Gregory's new book The Kings Curse so also expect that very soon.

 

Thanks for sticking with me :)
See you soon.
Leanne :)

Run up to my 21st - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Hello All :)

So in a week I will be turning 21 :D SO I have been reading for pleasure up until now in order to treat myself!! I have already had some celebrations but my most favourite and exciting one is on my actual birthday my mum is taking me to Harry Potter World in Watford!! I AM SO EXCITED!!! So in the run up to this I decided that I would revisit some of my favourite ever books and re read Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. I will be reading new books and I am hoping to get some nice new ones for my birthday :) I am currently 31 books into my dissertation research! So once I have managed to get through some more and have a plan written I will still be reading so much about Richard I but in doing this I have found that I can read more and I make myself :)


Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K.Rowling

Now Harry Potter books are some of my favourite books of all time but I haven't read them in what feels like forever  soooo I decided in the run up to my birthday treat of Harry Potter World, that I would re read them!! I have to start from the beginning! I am one of those people, I cant just dip into the books in any random order!!!

I can remember the first time I got this book, when it was brand new and there were no films no nothing!! And it was amazing!! I was a little bit young to read this book on my own as it came out in 1997 so I was only 4years old!!! SO my mum used to read the book to me on a night before I went to bed. I used to be horrible at going to bed but when she suggested reading this I loved it!! My mum used to read to me in a monotone voice in the hope that she would put me to sleep so she could also go  to bed .... but instead she used to get me telling her to 'put some expression into it' which I still tell her now :) I remember these books being magical to me when my mum first started reading them to me and over the last 17years they have not lost their magic no matter how many times I re read them!!!

Now I am assuming that everyone has either read Harry Potter or has at least watched a film!! SO I'm not going to go into the story etc.... But I would like to think about why these books capture a child's imagination and run with it. How magical it must have seemed at the age of 4 to be reading about a young boy ... a normal boy ... who goes off to become a Wizard! I have to admit for years I did hope that I would get a letter through the door so that I could go and learn to be a witch. I think it is the fact that Harry is normal up until he is 11 and then suddenly is plunged into a whole new world that means that children love it! There is a prospect of hope which makes that child think at 11 will I get that letter? Needless to say I am still waiting!!!! I love that the first book is so easy to read! With just over 200 pages it only took me 3 hours to get through the book with a dinner break in between!! So it was lovely to revisit this book :)


I think that next I am going to read 'The Gallows Curse - Kate Maitland' when I do get a chance to enjoy some reading!!!!


Again thanks for reading!!
See you soon :)
Leanne x

History, History, History.

Hello Again,

So the reading challenge is not going very well!! However ... I just thought I would do a little bit of an update. I am meant to be reading The Luminaries but I am struggling. My head is so full of Kingship in the Middle Ages, chivalry and masculinity, along with some good old Richard I. So instead I thought to keep myself going with some blog action that I would write a little bit about what I am reading other than my reading challenge. SOme of it is a little bit boring and nearly all of it is HISTORY but really this is to keep me going and to see if anyone else is even remotely interested in history!

Lionheart and Lackland: King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest - Frank McLynn.

So as you can tell this is very much a  history book that is related to my area of research for my dissertation (Richard I). However I wanted to write about this book as it is one that is accessible for anyone!! Many historians like to use big words etc.. that make them sound more intelligent and alienate their readers, but Frank McLynn is a history graduate who went into the world of journalism before he decided to write some history books!! I love his writing style as instead of writing like an academic book with subtitled sections to their books, McLynn actually writes in chapters like a normal novel. Which fortunately gives the illusion that you are reading a book and not an academic book!! SO I am progressing with this book really well. My only issue is that McLynn takes a very traditional approach with the good king Richard and bad king John. Even though I am TEAM RICHARD I I still love a historian who challenges this usual stereotype and goes for the opposite opinion. However McLynn does this very well and has a balanced argument unlike many of Richards historians.


The History of the Holy War - Ambroise

Apart from Ambroise referring to himself in third person ALL the time, this can be quite a readable book/poem. Written in the twelfth/thirteenth century Ambroise was a French poet who idolised Richard I and wrote his history. The poem is a little bit more stylised than most of the sources from the Third Crusade which is why it is more readable. Not quite as boring and the other longer accounts Ambroise bigs up Richard, exaggerates many aspects of the crusade  which makes the poem more like a story than real life. Personally I am enjoying this but I am a huge history geek that needs to get a life most of the time :)  But again with it being a poem it is very good and very accessible, even if it was written 800 years ago!!!


BBC History Magazine.

The BBC History Magazine is written by many different authors, journalists, historians etc.... Anyone who can specialise in anything!! I have been getting this magazine for quite a while and it is interesting, as everything that is going on in the world of history is in this magazine. Some obscure articles can sometimes grate and I do tend to miss out the ones that make me yawn just from the title!! But this months issue is very useful, very interesting and so moving! The First World War is one of those events that when I read anything about it or I watch anything about it, it really does make me cry (needless to say when a module was offered on the Great War this year at Uni, I avoided it as I don't think people would appreciate the amount of crying I would do over it!!). Yes I am pretty pathetic but just writing this is making me tear up! But the majority of the Feature parts of this issue are different aspects of the First World War along with many recommendations for books (That can be trusted). Therefore when I get around to finishing this issue off, there will be a lot of tears but a  lot of interest and a lot more reading!! If you have any interest in history or the First World War I would highly recommend the July issue of BBC History Magazine to you.



Sorry if I have bored you out of your brains but I thought I'd share a little bit of everything else that I do with you!!

I do promise that at some point I will actually get around to finishing some normal books so that it is something remotely interesting to read rather than my love for Richard I being professed!! So hopefully I soon will have finished the Luminaries, I have also bought many new books and I have been lent some more Terry Pratchett. SO look out for all these coming soon!!

Thanks for reading and persevering if your reading this part :)
See you soon,
Leanne :)