The Lady of The Rivers - Philippa Gregory

Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Luxembourg and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, was married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of nineteen she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her house-hold for love, and then carved out a life for herself as Queen Margaret of Anjou's close friend and a Lancaster supporter - until the day that her daughter Elizabeth Woodville fell in love and married the rival king Edward IV.

Of all the little-known but important women of the period, her dramatic story is the most neglected. With her links to Melusina, and to the founder of the house of Luxembourg, together with her reputation for making magic, she is the most haunting of heroines.

The first in the war of the roses series by Philippa Gregory, this book had my hooked from page one.

Gregory has not published her series in chronological order therefore there will be some confusion if others have read them by publication order.

The Lady of The Rivers is the first in chronological order - and I am so glad that I started from this book as you can follow through the family lines without getting mixed up, this time period shows lots of people named, Henry, Richard, Elizabeth etc and following the books by date order makes this so much easier to follow.

This was actually the first book I ever read by Philippa and it certainly isn't the last (I am just finishing off the second book)

I haven't read a lot of history novels so I can't really comment on what is fact in this novel however Philippa tends to follow the women's stories and in the Plantagenet period there was not a lot of information logged about women as they were seen as unimportant, so this does give her room to play with her novels.

Although women were not really of any importance, when you read philippa's books you realise just how much influence they had towards their men, and how they could manipulate to get what they wanted.

The story of Jacquetta is fantastic, she is one of the least acknowledged women of her time, but she achieves so much with her bravery and wisdom and makes for an inspiring read.