Cecily: An epic feminist retelling of the War of the Roses

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But this is high drama told on an epic scale that has you backing a complex, not always likeable, character. The will of God… that any man - or woman indeed - may, according to their courage, shape His will to their purpose. She’s not always likeable, doesn’t always break with stifling traditions, but overcomes huge loss and shows such perseverance that you’re left with no doubt that if she were with us today, she’d be in charge. As the novel makes clear, a girl's entire fate depended on who was her husband/father/son, and many women fell foul of this. We are so fixed in Cecily’s head to the point where the plot is essentially only reachable through the filter of her opinions and personal convictions.

The dynamic, original and bold prose really saved much of this book from its weaker plot/characterisation choices and breathed life into certain plot devices (eg Woman that knows better than her husband) that had otherwise long dried up by the time of this book for overuse. At home, power-hungry men within a corrupt government manipulate a weak king - and name Cecily's husband, York's loyal duke, an enemy. Not once did Garthwaite break out into history textbook dryness - a la Sunne in Splendour - to get the reader understanding what was going on.

Here, we get the story of the end War of the Roses as seen through the eyes of one women who was probably closest to the action - and perhaps a greater part of it than anyone of us will ever know.

She's rarely kind, always cutting; but, as a strong and intelligent woman frequently surrounded by the mediocre men inexplicably left to rule England, she's easy to root for.

Nervous because while I read a lot of historical fiction set in late medieval England, very rarely do I find that’s actually a decent read and the fact that the Wars of the Roses is often depicted in fiction with a very rigid and partisan Ricardian view. I know enough of the history to have context, but not enough to be distracted by possible inaccuracies.