The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

During the week or so that I was reading The White Queen by Philippa Gregory, when people asked what I was reading and how I was liking it, I told them the title and then I followed it up with what I usually say about Gregory - she basically writes drugstore smut and disguises it as historical fiction.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Does it seem like that's a recurring theme? I read books that are basically some varying degree of chick lit, but if you don't look out you could actually learn something in the process - but maybe that's really the point of reading. Food for thought.

ANYWAY, overarching themes aside, Gregory is done with writing about the Tudor dynasty of England and has moved on to the Plantagenets and the House of York (the dynasty that came before the Tudors). This book is the first in a new series - and I'm sure it'll be just as good (and popular) as the series about the Tudors.

This book focuses on Elizabeth Woodville - "The White Queen" - who was rumored to be a witch, or at least have tendencies towards witchcraft, which are explored in the book and add a new element to Gregory's writing. I didn't particularly enjoy that aspect of the book - it felt like Gregory was using it as a crutch to add an additional element of excitement to the story, whereas usually the brilliance her books (as far as I know, let's be real, I'm not any historical expert) is that they just rely on the known facts about the historical figures to build her stories. I kind of thought that her whole point was that there was enough drama in the truth and therefore there was no need to spice it up. Granted, she has to take some liberties in writing her dialogue - it's not like that was recorded anywhere - but this just felt like more than usual. That may be a welcome departure for some people - so don't let me turn you off from reading the book entirely. Just a comment.

As in all good drugstore smut, there is romance and intrigue. There's war, there's royalty, and as stated before there's witchcraft. Pretty good elements that add up to a pretty good story.