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A review by lisa_setepenre
Accession by Livi Michael
4.0
Accession is the third and final volume in Livi Michael’s series about Margaret of Anjou and Margaret Beaufort, focusing on the years after the Battle of Tewkesbury, when Edward IV holds the throne securely, the Lancastrians all but defeated – but the upheavals of Edward IV’s death and Richard III’s usurpation leave an opening in which all Margaret Beaufort’s hopes are poured.
Michael writes exquisitely and once again, everyone is characterised with great empathy and complexity. There is no real ‘good’ or ‘bad’ here but complex people living in complex times, trying to make the best of their lives. I loved the characterisation of Elizabeth Woodville and the way Michael showed the impossibility of her situation after Edward IV’s death. Jasper Tudor is finally sketched out into a more real character (though I remain bewildered at why no one seems to like him that much). While I’m not sure if I agree with Michael’s depiction of Margaret Beaufort and the actions she gives her in this volume, I did enjoy that they formed a character arc that, again, showed Michael as able to create complex and empathetic characters, even when their actions are quite unsympathetic.
I especially loved the chapters dealing with Margaret of Anjou. I expected there would be little of Margaret of Anjou in this book as her role in the Wars of the Roses really ended in the last book with the deaths of her husband and son and while we don’t get a lot of Margaret, what we do get is exquisite – particularly the chapter with Alice Chaucer, dowager Duchess of Suffolk, having Margaret in her charge.
If there was a weakness in Accession, it’s Richard III, whom Michael seems to avoid writing much about at all and when she does, seems reluctant to depict him as morally dubious. Perhaps she was more attracted to the idea thatgood, pious Margaret Beaufort agitating for the death of the Princes of the Tower, instead of the traditional view that it was Richard III who did it . It did read a little, though, as though Michael was scared of writing him in a way that bring a horde of Ricardians down on her head. The great questions of his reign – whether Edward IV was pre-contracted to Eleanor Talbot and thus his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and their children illegitimate, what happened to the Princes in the Tower – remain unanswered but the answers Michael hints at show Richard III as the innocent and noble party here. I just wish he’d been depicted like everyone else – complex, not morally perfect, capable of mistakes and misdeeds.
Michael’s approach is more experimental – again, she uses excerpts from historical records to give structure – and more literary than most historical fiction. Yet this is probably the best novel series I’ve read about the Wars of the Roses, depicting the people and conflict as complex and no one as goodies or baddies.
Michael writes exquisitely and once again, everyone is characterised with great empathy and complexity. There is no real ‘good’ or ‘bad’ here but complex people living in complex times, trying to make the best of their lives. I loved the characterisation of Elizabeth Woodville and the way Michael showed the impossibility of her situation after Edward IV’s death. Jasper Tudor is finally sketched out into a more real character (though I remain bewildered at why no one seems to like him that much). While I’m not sure if I agree with Michael’s depiction of Margaret Beaufort and the actions she gives her in this volume, I did enjoy that they formed a character arc that, again, showed Michael as able to create complex and empathetic characters, even when their actions are quite unsympathetic.
I especially loved the chapters dealing with Margaret of Anjou. I expected there would be little of Margaret of Anjou in this book as her role in the Wars of the Roses really ended in the last book with the deaths of her husband and son and while we don’t get a lot of Margaret, what we do get is exquisite – particularly the chapter with Alice Chaucer, dowager Duchess of Suffolk, having Margaret in her charge.
If there was a weakness in Accession, it’s Richard III, whom Michael seems to avoid writing much about at all and when she does, seems reluctant to depict him as morally dubious. Perhaps she was more attracted to the idea that
Michael’s approach is more experimental – again, she uses excerpts from historical records to give structure – and more literary than most historical fiction. Yet this is probably the best novel series I’ve read about the Wars of the Roses, depicting the people and conflict as complex and no one as goodies or baddies.