Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Fun and Games in Tudor England

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

by Leave a Comment

What is this, Tatooine?  Is not Tudor England the most outrageous wretched hive of scum and villainy one can ever imagine?  Friends, it is that, hands down. This tale, one of the many involving King Henry the Eighth, who is most famous for being the fat guy who was Queen Elizabeth 1st’s father, focuses on his second queen, the first beheaded one.  (Ain’t gonna lie, ain’t gonna cry.)  But mostly it is the story of the Boleyn siblings, Anne, Mary and George.  These three never […]

A Broad Historical Romance

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory

by 1 Comment

The first novel in the sweeping series, The Cousins War, Philippa Gregory’s The Lady of the Rivers tells the story of Jacquetta Woodville, Lady Rivers. The mother of the eventual queen of England, Elizabeth Woodville, Jacquetta is a young woman from Luxembourg’s royal family. She is married at 17 to the Duke of Bedford who, according to the novel, wished to use her prowess as a wise woman and a seer to increase the power of the nation of England against France and other international powers. Only a […]

Love me some historical messy bishes

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

by 4 Comments

Are you one of those people who likes to read the book before seeing the movie?  I am.  So when I found out (around 3-4 years late) that there was a White Queen mini-series, I was excited to jump in.  I had also just lost my job and I was really looking for a book to serve as a screen saver for the brain; something that would entertain me but wouldn’t test me.  A historical family drama definitely hit the spot. Philippa Gregory’s collected works […]

You could do worse than this fictionalized primer on the War of the Roses

by 1 Comment

3.5 stars Philippa Gregory is a giant in her corner of historical fiction, which seems essentially “Aristocrats and Nobles of 15th and 16th century Britain (particularly Women).” Even though I had never read her books, I had a detached respect for her as a well-researched author whose fictionalizations garnered generalized interest for the history her books cover. That impression holds true, and I still appreciate her doing her thing. I get that because she’s working from a record of stuff that actually happened, she can […]

Finally a Philippa Gregory book I actually enjoyed

by Leave a Comment

Young Jewish girl Hannah Verde flees the Inquisition in Spain with her father after her mother is burned for heresy. They travel through Europe to England, calling themselves “Green” and making a new life for themselves as loyal Christians. Hannah´s father has a printing press and soon his skilled work comes to the attention of scholars like John Dee. While John Dee is visiting their print shop with his patron, Lord Robert Dudley, Hannah has one of her visions, seeing an angel over their shoulder. […]

The one where I think I’m glad I didn’t live in 16th century England…

by 1 Comment

The Queen’s Fool is one of those books that sat on my bookshelf for awhile, getting passed over time and again for something else. I don’t know if it was the cover (it does look a little romance-y) or the blurb on the back, but it never really jumped out and demanded to be read. Then one day, I found myself reaching for it, and I couldn’t put it down. Set during the tumultuous years after King Edward’s death in the sixteenth century, the novel […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo