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Philippa Gregory

The Lady of the Rivers Hardcover – 1 October 2011

by Philippa Gregory (Author)

2,261 ratings

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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 household 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.

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Product details

Publisher : Simon & Schuster UK (1 October 2011)
Language : English
Hardcover : 512 pages
ISBN-10 : 184737459X
ISBN-13 : 978-1847374592
Dimensions : 16.8 x 3.8 x 24.1 cm

Customer Reviews:
2,261 ratings

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Review

'Popular historical fiction at its finest, immaculately researched and superbly told' - Kate Saunders, The Times (10 Sept 2011)

About the Author

Philippa Gregory is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognized authority on women’s history. Her work has been adapted for the screen in The Other Boleyn Girl movie and the critically acclaimed STARZ miniseries The White Queen and The White Princess. Her most recent novel is The Last Tudor. She graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent. She holds two honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction. She welcomes visitors to her website, PhilippaGregory.com.

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2 star		2%
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The Undertaker

Its just the beginning......

Reviewed in Australia on 14 July 2014

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The first book in "the cousins war" series. Jacquetta, (mother of Elizabeth Woodville) is the focal character in this novel, a descendant of Melusina the water goddess. First Lady in the kingdom next to the Queen. Read Jacquetta's story, its the foundation the rest of the series, and honestly, I couldn't put it down. This is not just a story about the beginning of the war of the roses, its a love story, an historical reference and well written biographical fiction. If you love history but don't like to read boring books about historical events. If you want to get into the heart and soul of the characters, then this is the book for you, go, read it, you know you want to

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JPNoosa

Extremely well researched!

Reviewed in Australia on 6 May 2020

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If you want a detailed well researched account of the War of the Roses, then this book is it. Very well written, if perhaps a little bit too long and ‘wordy’.

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Conivinglime

Romance, history and mysticism

Reviewed in Australia on 18 May 2016

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A book with romance, historical references and a little mysticism. I loved this novel! It is the first one that starts the story of the House of Lancaster and leads into the rise of the House of York, the historical first of the Cousins War series.

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Mandy Hodgkinson

Reignited my love of history

Reviewed in Australia on 6 October 2015

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I loved this book. I enjoyed the fact that's the main character was not the Royal, but someone close enough to allow you to experience both worlds. Great storyteller who has reignited my love of history. I will definitely be making my way through each book in the series, and then some. Can't wait!

One person found this helpful

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M. S. Davis

Great and interesting read.

Reviewed in Australia on 7 November 2015

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As Usual with Philippa Gregory this was a fantastic story, as she always does the real story behind the fiction is engrossing particularly if you have read any of the other Cousins War series. the only problem I have with this book is putting it down.

One person found this helpful

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mary tayor

I enjoyed the TV series the White Queen so when I ...

Reviewed in Australia on 18 March 2015

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My first time of reading her books. I enjoyed the TV series the White Queen so when I saw that this was about her mother Jaquetta, I was interested and not at all disappointed..it was full of suspense and terror. I deserves a 5!

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Mel Pombart

Not a Tudor, but a good read

Reviewed in Australia on 12 July 2015

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Not as good as the Tudor novels, but keeps you interested and quite fast paced which I enjoyed. It didn't bog you down in who did purely by Jacquettas narration keeping it flowing

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maureen

book.service great

Reviewed in Australia on 16 June 2020

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great service.Beautiful book.

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Louise Marley

My favourite of the series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 December 2016

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The Lady of the Rivers is #3 in Philippa Gregory's The Cousins' War series. The story is about Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the mother of Elizabeth Woodville, and is a prequel to The White Queen, ending neatly at the exact moment that story begins. With hindsight, I wish I'd read this book first, as it explains the tensions leading up to the start of the Wars of the Roses, something I never fully understood (maybe I should have paid more attention at school!). It explains who all the leading players were, and their motivations, which is a great help when many of them switched sides - and then back again!

The story starts with Jacquetta at the home of her uncle, making friends with one of his prisoners of war, a young girl named Joan, who says she hears the voice of God. As Joan has been advising the Dauphin of France in his war against the English, understandably the English want Joan dead. Sure enough, they burn her at the stake, for being a heretic, witch and traitor. And Jacquetta learns two important lessons (1) To keep quiet about her own visions and (2) That the wheel of fortune 'can thrown a woman so high in the world that she can command a king, or pull her down to this: a dishonoured agonising death'.

But Jacquetta has caught the eye of the most important man in France - the 'elderly' Regent, John, Duke of Bedford and brother to the English King Henry V - but not in the way she thinks. The Duke wants her to predict the future of England, but all she sees are a ring shaped like a golden crown, battle after bloody battle, and a queen with her horse at a forge, putting the horseshoes on backwards ...

I think this is my favourite of the series so far. It shows the beginning of the amnosity between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, something I never really understood. I loved the character of Jacquetta, a strong woman who never really wanted the power she had, who learned to conceal her gift of second sight and anything else which might be construed as 'witchy'. Unlike the previous two books, The White Queen and The Red Queen, Jacquetta is often right at the heart of the action - with her own life, as well as those of her husband and children, in peril. She is feistier than Elizabeth Woodville (The White Queen) and a lot more likeable than Margaret Beaufort (The Red Queen).

A fascinating woman, an exciting read - and definitely recommended!

12 people found this helpful

RKDerby

Cousins War Series-War of the Roses-Brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 August 2018

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If you like historic fiction bases on facts (faction) the this is a brilliant series. There are 6 books and, although each book stands alone, if you are going to read all 6 you should/must read them in the right order. Lady of the Rivers, White Queen, Red Queen, Kingmakers daughter, White Princess and Kings Curse. I found each difficult to put down. They all look at the same period of history but each from the view of different women of the time. They are a brilliant read. Each is a great story, brilliantly told, based on historical facts and not a little imagination. Highly recommended.

7 people found this helpful

lsgMerlin

Not one of Philippa Gregory's best!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2015

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I have almost finished the book - through dogged determination, rather than as a tribute to Philippa Gregory's writing on this occasion. The book is written in the first person, from the perspective of Jacquetta (Lady Rivers), and is written in the present tense. For me, these two factors limit the scope of the story. Jacquetta's viewpoint becomes quite tedious at times, although it is successful in depicting the vagaries of life at court in the fifteenth century. Others have mentioned that dipping into mystical/magic/second sight themes detracts from the book. I don't think this is necessarily true - it conveys, at least to some extent, the superstition of fifteenth century society. However, I found it hard to suspend disbelief when Jacqetta and her fine, upstanding husband continue to be loyal supporters of the power-hungry, ruthless Queen Margaret of Anjou, despite the atrocities she commits. It stretched my patience a bit too far and the characters lost my sympathy!

2 people found this helpful

R. A. Davison

One of the stronger Cousins War Novels

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2014

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The Lady Of The Rivers is a prequel and takes us back to the very start of the Cousins War as seen through the eyes of Jacquetta Of Luxembourg, a young woman of a noble house who draws the attention of the Duke Of Bedford then the most powerful man in France which was under English rule. Having married the Duke Of Bedford Jacquetta finds herself a senior member of the English Royal Family and the House Of Lancaster and from there on is at the centre of most of the big events of that time despite very little being known of her historically.

This is the point of most of Philippa Gregory's history novels, how little there is on record of the women who were part of the big events of the day and how much they shaped them. Through Jacquetta she says a lot about women, how they had to be careful not to appear 'too clever' is the eyes of men, how they had to be above suspicion and yet how they could alter the course of events in their own way without men really realising.The strength that Margaret Of Anjou exhibits in the face of adversity is shown equally to be her downfall as the people of London shun a woman out of keeping with her place in the world.

Jacquetta is constantly mindful of drawing attention to herself because she has inherited The Sight and fears being burned as a witch like Joan Of Arc before her. The Tarot Card The Wheel Of Fortune runs as a symbol throughout the book as a symbol of the fortunes of the men and the women they took along with them on the journey as they rise very high and fall very low.

A strong, likeable, character who features across The Cousins War novels Jacquetta is easy to respect and admire, to marvel at in terms of how extraordinary her life was. I did find it so odd that in the end she was the undoing of her own best friend and how that must have felt for her & whether she just accepted it as the hand that Fate dealt them all.

History is full of interesting women about whom little is known and I hope Gregory keeps up this documentation (albeit within fictional parameters) of them.

I liked this one.

3 people found this helpful

judith

Once upon a time . . . .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 August 2013

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This book is chronologically first in the series on the Cousins' War. It tells the story of Jaquetta Rivers, Elizabeth Woodville. In terms of piecing together the history of the wars, it is necessary to read it in order to set the remainder of the group of books into sequence and explain how the past shows in present actions of some of the other women. Jaquetta Rivers was, herself, an interesting woman, so the book also introduces the reader to women's position in the period: strengths, weaknesses, tactics and strategies open to women . . . as well as the sense of the "numinous wondrous", which was widely shared in the population, and later showed up as accusations of witchcraft against the Woodville matriarch.

I liked this book a lot, not quite as much as I liked "The White Queen" (which is outstanding). What I like about the whole sequence of books is that the women themselves tell their own stories -- and what they feel about the other women. This is very different from "documentary history", which tells stories "about the women". There is an important historiographic point here. Because these are novels, we "know" they are "stories" -- in contrast to the "storylines" being more hidden in dryer, apparently more "factual" histories. In short, imagination is as important as "documentable fact" in all history-writing. A second important point is that each of the books in the series gives us different insights -- as the heroines of each novel recount their perspectives on the other heroines. This leads to a very intricate understanding, both of the times and of the whole set of books.

2 people found this helpful

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