Rank:Platinum Member Score: 256 Posts: 256 From: USA
(Date Posted:05/11/2009 4:56 PM)
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Finished that novel The King's Daughter by Barbara Kyle what took place in Mary's reign. 1st off that title is a total cheat as methinks Mary got like 2 whole scenes in it. I kept expecting the main character, Isabel, was going to end up as a Tudor bastard eventually just to justify it. 2nd now FA is going to have me evaluating the 1st 50 pgs of every book I read after the statement she made regarding how books get a look-see LOL because this one I was ready to throw away by that point as well. The writing style wasn't that great & it took forever for this author to cut to the chase. I have a feeling this may have been a sequel to something by the way there was all this backstory presented 1st like you were supposed to know what was going on in the past.
This starts right before Wyatt's Rebellion & Isabel, the main peep, is engaged to Martin, & he & his priestly brother Robert are in on the conspiracy. Then there's this Spanish mercenary, Carlos, who fought in some Scots campaign & got a land grant & was all happy happy joy joy I'm not gonna end up dead I can be respectable now except that there's some greedy peep who takes him to court wanting it & wins & Carlos gets mighty ticked off at losing & lunges for the dude & ends up in prison for killing the bailiff.
Meanwhile, Isabel's parents are in deep doo doo because apparently back when Henry was cracking down on heretics they smuggled peeps to the continent & now one of the peeps they smuggled is a lawyer (the same one who sneakily won the case against Carlos) & engaged to one of Mary's ladies & in good with the queen & is a good lil Catholic now & doesn't want his scurrilous past to come out, so he rats out Isabel's mother for it & the crazed lunatic next door to them (the GFs father) is a fanatic Catholic (there's always one). When he's told about the fact that Mother was arrested & condemned to burn (only was sprung by Dad) he goes storming over & shoots her. Well, Dad's not thrilled with this so he returns the favor & so he ends up in prison, too.
Methinks the author just got thru reading a book about English prisons acuz there was lots of time wasted going thru every single one of em in London
Isabel, who's committed herself to Wyatt as a go-between to the French ambassador, de Noailles, now has Dad in jail & Mom packed off to her brother in the Low Countries to hopefully survive said gunshot wound (we never do find out if she did which is annoying). Dad gets moved from the boonies to London. After (ICK FACTOR ALERT) Isabel's trying to bribe the jailer to spring him & he says OK but you ain't got enough money honey make nice with me....in front of Dad & Carlos, who are shackled up together in the same cell Of course the jailer had no intention of letting Dad go, Isabel's just an idiot for consenting to it & Dad was rather icked out as ya would be. Dad is immediately hauled off to be transferred to London. Carlos strangles the jailer with his shackles & Isabel sets him free & they team up to find Dad.
What Isabel doesn't know about Carlos (there's always something) is that the lawyer guy's lackey hired him to kill Dad (that pesky heresy witness thing) & Carlos fully intends to carry out the contract because he's supposed to get enough coin out of it to set himself up elsewhere. He figures by teaming up with stupid Isabel he can find Dad faster. Hence all the tedious prison touring
In between stuff Isabel is running errands for Wyatt & de Noailles (how she finds the time what with touring & drooling over Carlos I am sure I dunno). Dad is in Newgate (of course the last stop on the tour) & comes down with jail fever & fakes being dead so the dead cart will take him away ICK FACTOR & escapes & recovers & runs off to join Wyatt's peeps. Since Dad has flown the coop & Carlos is not getting his money, he hires on for a mercenary with Mary's peeps after the smarmy lawyer dude rats him out & cozens the increasingly stupid Isabel to let him help her look for Dad instead. Of course by this pt Carlos & Isabel are madly in love with each other but she's engaged to Martin & on Wyatt's side so conflict. Trying to ice Dad didn't help him out there LOL
Carlos gets put in charge of Mary's cavalry & there's a battle in which he trounces Wyatt's peeps but good & in the course of such kills Robert. He didn't mean to, in his defense. Well, he did LOL until he realized stupid Robert was a priest & tried not to but there's that whole full tilt boogie thing one does with a lance that's not easily arrested. So instead of killing him outrightly & cleanly he leaves him with a nasty belly wound & it takes him all night to die of it. O the reason a priest is against Mary is because he's one of the ones who got married under Edward's reign & has a wife & kidlets now FYI. Martin finds his bro but in all the confusion & with the royal troops trying to find all the fleeing Wyatt peeps they end up secreted in the woods & that's where Robert dies. Tis Feb yknow & not pleasant to be out of doors. Martin is all um no thanks I've had it with this war stuff it ain't nice & decides he's going to flee all the way across the Channel. Isabel once again is in the midst of messengering & he says come with & she's appalled & says if he bolts & deserts Wyatt he can go whistle for marrying her & Martin is all c ya then & toddles off
Carlos meanwhile is a big hero for his battle tactics. He's sent over to Southwark to infiltrate Wyatt's camp & see what's up & runs into Dad. Stories exchanged & they realize Isabel's in serious danger being all cozy with the lawyer. Carlos tries accusing the lawyer & Isabel of working with Wyatt (which ticks Isabel off at him even more) but alas not enough evidence & if Isabel wasn't so tediously stupid & refusing to listen to Carlos about this guy's double dealing at least he would've gotten her out of his clutches.
Then over a chess match with the guy he inadvertantly lets slip the seecrud heretic password & FINALLY Isabel gets a clue. Too late alas as there's a plan in motion whereby Ludgate is to be opened to the rebels & the lawyer's pd off some archers to make sure Dad gets a nice arrow when he enters. O Dad has a Francis Bryan thing going on so that's how he'll be IDd, the dude with the eyepatch LOL Of course he sneaks off to do something nefarious, leaving Isabel under guard, & now that her brain has been kick started she manages to escape. Decisions decisions. Does she stand by & watch Dad get killed, or does she destroy Wyatt's sole hope of getting into the city by closing the gate?
At this pt I am going WTF? How is this a dilemma? If she closes the gate Dad's a goner for sure because Carlos's peeps are going to slaughter what's left of Wyatt's!
But she does it. Slams it right in Wyatt's face. He's shocked lemmee tell ya Then she spies the lawyer slipping thru some grille & realizes he's going to go outside the walls & make sure Dad buys it anyway & stupidly rushes after him. Carlos is in charge of the mop up op & has the lawyer rounded up with the rest of the rebels going ha ha you're outsidewith em you must be one. The only way Isabel doesn't get arrested is because she's now known as "the Angel of the Gate" who saved London huzzah!
So they're all sentences to hang at Tyburn (save Wyatt natch) & Isabel goes & stands by Dad & Carlos comes in & saves the day by saving Dad's life & they manage to get on one of Dad's ships & off to the Low Countries we go. Isabel knows Carlos had a sweet set up going as one of Mary's peeps & so there's kissing & making up the end & like I said, what happened to Mom?
Until this book got into the actual rebellion (which shockingly was pretty historically accurate), it was tough going to read & Isabel was irksomely stupid for a main character. Carlos was much more fun LOL Don't know if you want to slog thru such tripe for the good historical bits
Thanks for the complete review - think I'll pass on this one! I hate trudging through boring characters to get to the interesting historical tidbits. In fact, tomorrow I'm returning a library book that was billed as an international best seller, set during the Crimean War. I couldn't get over how BORING the heroine was! I just couldn't make myself care about her - didn't even finish the book, which is rare for me.....
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I have read that book but it has been a few years...what is the first publishing date on it? If it is the same one that i read,,and the plot sounds so familiar...the spanish dude being sued..Wyatt rebellion...mum and dad doing some illegal things..yep it is the same..I think there was a another book that came first that is about her parents...it is a hard read to follow and it dwells alot on minute to minute details of the rebellion..etc..but her details are pretty accurate..and it must of had an impact on me if i remember it all these years later...I think alot of why it does stand out is because of the love story of a spanish dude and an young englishwoman and all the extra added drama...
Rank:Platinum Member Score:256 Posts:256 From: USA
RE:The King's Daughter
(Date Posted:05/24/2009 1:57 PM)
Luckily I ended up renewing the library haul (Revelation was nigh on as fat as GWTW), so I went & looked & good call, Robbielynne It was published in 1995 as a Signet Onyx paperback, so apparently the author got her rights back because this was a large paperback just put out by Kensington/Zebra. The same thing happened with Karen Harper's TheLast Boleyn (Mary Boleyn novel) & The First Princess of Wales (novel on Joan of Kent), too. I reckon TTOS & PG have done some good if publishers are frantically scouring backlists trying to cash in on the surge of Tudormania LOL In fact, I was peeking at Amazon earlier & OMG there are soooooooooooooo many new Tudor books! If I have the ambition I will compile a listing.
(Message edited by Greensleeves On 05/24/2009 2:01 PM)
How is this a dilemma? 
Then she spies the lawyer slipping thru some grille & realizes he's going to go outside the walls & make sure Dad buys it anyway & stupidly rushes after him. Carlos is in charge of the mop up op & has the lawyer rounded up with the rest of the rebels going ha ha you're outsidewith em you must be one. The only way Isabel doesn't get arrested is because she's now known as "the Angel of the Gate" who saved London huzzah!
