Finished: The White Queen (Gregory). A nice, page-turning historical fiction account of Elizabeth Woodville, i.e., the white queen, from the time she meets King Edward IV of England to the time, as his widowed queen, that she goes into sanctuary as his younger brother betrays her young son, the rightful heir to the throne, and has himself crowned king. This is the first in a great series of books that deals with this time in history...the time of the tragic "princes in the tower". Those princes, ages 12 and 9, are Elizabeth's sons by King Edward, Prince Edward and Prince Richard. Right before King Edward dies, he still trusts his younger brother Richard implicitly and names him the protector of Prince Edward who will soon be a very young king. Of course, instead of honoring his brother's wishes, Richard has the marriage between Edward and Elizabeth declared illegal, making her children illegitimate and the boys no longer first and second in line to the throne. This makes way for Richard to be crowned the new king. He has the boys imprisoned in the Tower of London, but supposedly never intends to harm them. In the television show, it is implied what happened to them, and that it wasn't Richard who had them murdered, but perhaps his own wife...or perhaps Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, who defeats Richard in battle and actually steals the crown from him. In the book, the Margaret Beaufort theory is put forward, and Richard has a passionate scene with Elizabeth swearing he didn't harm the boys. In any event, in real life (as in the book) the bodies of the young princes were never found, so no one ever knows what exactly happened to them. The book is a great, compelling tale of the three brothers, Edward, George and Richard...but mostly it is the tale of the love story between Elizabeth and Edward, told from her point of view. It definitely includes many battle scenes that happened during that period, including the scene between Edward and his former father-figure and mentor, the "kingmaker", Warwick. And the book realistically shows all the betrayals...including King Edward finally realizing he must have his own brother George executed for treason. George picks his own punishment...being drowned in a barrel of wine! As the book ends, we are left with King Richard about to go to war with the young Henry Tudor and his many supporters. And the prize for the winner, other than the crown....Elizabeth's oldest daughter, also named Elizabeth. She will marry the winner of the battle and become queen of England, and eventual mother to King Henry VIII! I might just have to read more books in this series. :-)