The White Queen

[ShadeofViolet]

Anyone else ridiculously excited?

I know Philippa Gregory's books tend to be a bit Barbara Cartland in places, and I hope the BBC havent increased it, but I still cannot wait to watch it.

Ooh, nicely done.

The names always make me think of Jane Austen so I get very confused.

LeQ "Scrying" is the smokey thing, isn't it?

LOL, I just looked up the Jarman book of which you speak and as well as the sensible-looking edition (with historically correct hat) I found this little beauty: www.amazon.co.uk/We-Speak-No-Treason-Book/dp/0515083380/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372425140&sr=1-11&keywords=we+speak+no+treason

I liked the bit by the water with the reeling in, partly perhaps because I wasn't expected any magic stuff. And it was more atmospheric than gazing into smoke in your nightie

Though I would still love Elizabeth's nightgown to float about in.

So what's a good read for someone to get into that whole period?

The water bit was quite pretty, but it dragged on a bit for me. And the little crown-shaped ring just looked tacky.

I am with you on the nightgown though.

The ring was a bit "Kinder Surprise".

I loved the books and always said it would be interesting to read them concurrently, but the series is a let down! I can't believe they've had us waiting for 6 months.

they've cut so much out I'm confused about what's happening! and yes, everything everyone else has said too.

Reading what PG said about writing RQ, she found it difficult to change allegiance to write it having already done it to write WQ and get sympathetic to EW and I think out shows, the book isn't sympathetic to her at all. WRT Margaret being religious, she is written so religious she annoys people. Jaquetta's family held Joan of Ark for awhile and Margaret questions her constantly about her, as she's her heroine. She describes herself as having "saint's knees" as she spends her life on her knees in prayer.

Some people have asked about where her son was, it was normal to be sent to a relative as a child.

I love the period so much, I set my wedding around it I was reading the books at the same time and getting ideas. We had a lot of Lancaster v York "fights" (the best man is a Yorkist).

You're absolutely right about Lofts being edgy. I'd never seen her described as that before, but she is.

Thanks LeQ. I like a bit of weight and archaic sounds good. Someone lent me a Philippa Gregory and though I found the period interesting, the writing wasn't my thing.

That cover art seems to be default 'thing we have reprinted this cos it is all, like, trendy now'. It's totally unrelated but the exact same font was used for reprints of Diana Wynne Jones after JK Rowling made that sort of story trendy.

Yes, there's absolutely no guarantee the good will be rewarded or the bad punished.
Eg in the Town House trilogy, Martin never finds out the truth about Pert Tom and what happened to Kate, and carries on looking after him for the rest of his life.
And the woman in The House At Sunset who desperately wants to buy The Old Vine back never gets it and has her money stolen.

She's been compared to William Faulkner. And yet when I was young she was more often than not shelved in the Historical Romance section in the library and given covers a bit like the one I linked to.

Jassy - haven't read that one for years but wasn't it filmed with Margaret Lockwood?

It's her mastery of historical detail that does it for me most though. In The Town House where Agnes puts the handfuls of wheat on Martin's bed for his marriage to Magda so they'll be fruitful - with that one tiny detail she tells you so much about tradition and belief, character and motivation.
I also love that she writes about working class characters as much as posh ones.

Yes, I definitely think Gregory was inspired by Lofts in her earlier work, I've noticed it too. If they ever get her on for a webchat that can be my question! When I first read Gregory I thought 'oh wow, a new Norah Lofts' but I'm not sure she's totally lived up to that promise. I feel like she's churning out so many now and they need to be more tightly plotted and edited more ruthlessly. They go on a bit, which I don't think Lofts ever did.

Eek, Gad's Hall! It came as a total shock to me as an innocent teenager. Terrifying! There was a witchy one that was made into a Hammer horror film, too. There's also a dodgy contemporary rape one in which the repressed spinsters quite enjoy being raped

The repressed homosexuality - yes. There's some non-repressed homosexuality in The House At Old Vine, too.

The Town House trilogy is on Kindle. It's my favourite of her work, though The Concubine is very good. I must re-read the Knight's Acre ones, too.

What I absolutely love are the books where she takes the same setting and uses different narrators so you see people through their own eyes and then through someone else's. She's incredible on character development - how people get from A to B in the course of their lives, what made them the way they are. And of course, how physical settings like towns do.