Finished: Henry VIII (Shakespeare) I always love reading Shakespeare, but this one was harder for me to get interested in for some reason. Henry VIII was the son of Henry Tudor (the VII), who won the crown from Richard III. I really enjoyed reading all those Shakespeare "histories", so I'm not sure why this one didn't grab me. Surprisingly to me, it wasn't very much about his seven wives. As a matter of fact, we only meet two of them...his first one, Catherine of Aragon, and then the one he divorced Catherine for, Anne Boleyn. The story was more about how King Henry put so much trust in Cardinal Woolsey, only to find out that Woolsey was being duplicitous. Of course, he didn't find that out until after Woolsey had been responsible for the beheading of the beloved Duke of Buckingham. Anyway, by the end of the play, Anne Boleyn has given birth to Elizabeth and the future Queen has just been christened. Not my favorite, but I'm still glad to have read it! I always feel smarter, yet really dumb at the same time, after reading a Shakespeare play, lol.

Finished: A Daughter of the Land (Stratton-Porter) A fine, old book that belonged to my great-grandmother. It reminded me very much of a grown-up version of the Little House on the Prairie books with it's wholesome values and lesson-learning events. It tells the story of 18 year old Katherine "Kate" Bates, the youngest daughter of sixteen children, of a hardworking farming family in the late 1800's. All their lives the Bates children work the farm so that when each son reaches the age of 21 his father gives him 200 acres of the huge farm to go and get a bride and build a home of his own. Even the daughters work towards this goal, because being women, they won't need land of their own when they get married. (ugh) Instead, when the daughters turn 18 they are sent to Normal School, which is a weeks long program in the summer to teach them to become teachers. Kate, of course, is very headstrong and would love her own 200 acres. However, she's resigned to the way of the family and is at least excited to go and learn to become a teacher. Shockingly, her parents have other ideas. Since Kate is the youngest, they expect her to stay on at the farm indefinitely, continuing to help her mother run the house and do her share of the farming as well. Kate is understandably upset when her parents refuse all reason and begging. Kate takes matters into her own hands and goes to her oldest brother for a loan of the money required to go. Adam doesn't want to buck his father, but his feisty wife, the only sister-in-law worth a darn, gives her the money to go! And so Kate begins her life of adventures, including falling in love, spurning the love because he's illiterate and rich, refusing her father's job suggestion and therefore being banned from the family home forever, marrying a man who doesn't love her, having a set of twins, finally getting her "share" of her father's inheritance when he dies, investing all her money in a sawmill that is about to open and be profitable when her drunkard husband accidentally burns the whole thing down and dies in the process, raising her twins in near poverty, finally going back home to help her mother where she and her children both thrive on the farm, etc. etc. It was a good book that kept me reading...not really deep, but good enough. Oh, and Kate finally got land all her own when her mother died and left her and only her the original acreage of the homestead! No matter what, it was very surreal reading a book that my great-grandmother, and probably my grandmother, held in their very own hands!

Finished: Flight Behavior (Kingsolver) Book Club Book #7. A deeply moving and well written book about the "miracle" of the sudden migration of millions of monarch butterflies to a little mountain farm in the Appalachians and the ramifications this event has on the people on the farm, the town folks, the scientists who come to study the migration, and mostly the young mother who first discovers the huge, fluttering field of orange. Dellarobia Turnbow is an unhappy, 28 year old mother of two small children, married to her high school sweetheart because they got pregnant. Even though they lost that baby, Dellarobia and her husband, Cub, stayed married and continued living in a small house built on the Appalachian sheep farm of his parents, Bear and Hester. When we first meet Dellarobia she is running away from her marriage...leaving it all behind, including five year old Preston and 18 month old Cordelia. She's headed up the mountain for a rendezvous with a younger man and plans to finally run away and leave behind the life she never wanted to be tied down to. Oh, she apparently loves her children, but it's hard for me to reconcile that when we first meet her completely prepared to ditch them. Anyway, on the way to her rendezvous, Dellarobia stumbles upon a valley of undulating orange...and not just a valley, but every branch of every tree seems to be covered with the mysterious orange hangings. She doesn't know what in the world it is, but she takes it to be a sign that she should not be doing what she's doing and she returns home. When she hears from her husband Cub that his father is thinking of cutting down all the woods above their house to pay for a near-defaulted balloon mortgage on the farm, she suggests that Cub needs to first go and see what is in those woods. After that, things happen pretty quickly with town folk, the preacher, the media and scientists all descending on the area. The orange mass is actually millions of monarch butterflies who have accidentally come to the Tennessee mountains for the winter, instead of to their natural migratory place, Mexico. Soon we meet Ovid Byron, the scientist who sets up camp in a trailer by Dellarobia and Cub's barn, and creates a lab to study the butterflies in a part of that barn. Dellarobia, some of the town folk, and the preacher...and even Dellarobia's very cold, businesslike mother-in-law, all feel that the trees should not be cut down. They feel that nature should not be messed with when God has brought this miracle to their backdoor. They are afraid that Bear will not listen to reason and will destroy the butterflies. Ovid, on the other hand, is more concerned with global warming and what could have possibly caused the butterflies, with hundreds of years of instinct and distinct migratory patterns to suddenly light here. His fears run deeper than cutting down the forest. He's afraid that the cold mountain winter will freeze all the butterflies and completely destroy the species. Though she never went to college, Dellarobia finally finds a subject to spark her intellect and her passion, and for the first time becomes a working mom as Ovid pays her to work every day in the lab and on the mountain. Little Preston is also very interested. He's only in Kindergarten, but smart as a whip and relishes the time that Ovid spends with him. Needless to say, Dellarobia falls for Ovid, or she thinks she does. I think mostly she just finds a fulfillment there of her self-worth that she doesn't find with Cub. Ovid is happily married, though, and never even aware of Dellarobia's feelings. He's only concerned with the butterflies and the significance of this huge event. In the end, Dellarobia and Preston do witness the coupling of a male and female butterfly, even after Ovid said they'd all frozen in the snow. It turns out, huge numbers of them did not freeze and end up flying away in a huge swarm at the very end of the book. But, also by the end of the book, Dellarobia has "found" herself and lets Cub know that she's never been happy. She has a conversation with Preston and tells him they are going to live in the next town with her best friend, Dovey, where there is a college that Dellarobia can attend, thanks to some strings pulled by Ovid. Poor Preston realizes the implications of them leaving his father behind, but as he does the whole story, takes it like a little man. I really don't think I can forgive Dellarobia for telling him all this the day before his birthday. Basically she sits him down to tell him three things: 1) before he was born there was another baby who would have been his older brother who died, 2) oh, but I've got a really great surprise for you for your birthday, you finally get a little computer phone, that we have to share, to look up all your science questions, and 3) but yeah, also we're moving away to live with Dovey and leaving your dad here on the farm. Don't worry, you and Cordie will get to see him. You'll be just like the butterflies migrating back and forth. Huh. I just can't say that Dellarobia is one of my favorite characters a story has ever been written about, but I do have some pangs of sympathy for her. I can't imagine being born and raised in a world so cut off from most of the outside world and having your future be laid out for you with practically no choice. Well, they did make that teenage sex choice, but that stupidity is not singular to a small town Appalachian girl. Oh well. In all, it was a very well written book with lots of wonderful phrases. And, it was deeply moving, probably in a different way for me that it was intended.

Here are a couple of memorable quotes:

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.

And the next one, which really resonated with me. Lately I've myself been kind of mourning the lost knowledge of my dad and brother. I mean, there are so many questions I'd like to ask them that I'll never know the answer to. Sigh. Here's the quote:

As a child she'd never thought to ask, and now she would never know. So much knowledge died with a person.

Finished: Cancer Ward (Solzhenitsyn) A moving, well written book about a group of men in a Russian cancer ward in the 1950's. Having a husband who has battled the insidious disease, who still gets scans and oncology appointments every 9 months after 13 years, this look into the deepest fears and feelings of the patients really resounded in me. I can't quite put it into words, but I felt deeply for each of the sick characters as their personal stories unfolded. A while back I asked my son, who has his masters in Russian History and is currently pursuing his PhD in the same field, who his favorite Russian author was. I was totally expecting him to say Tolstoy or Dostoevsky...but instead he said, hmm, probably Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn's life mirrored pretty closely the main character of Cancer Ward, Oleg Kostoglotov...both had been exiled in their own countries when the political tides had shifted...and both had cancer. Solzhenitsyn beat his cancer and died in his 80's. We leave Oleg at the end of the book at only age 34, but with many cancer treatments under his belt....but pretty understandably NOT having totally beat cancer yet...heading back to his exile camp. I guess it's a sign of a pretty good book when you keep thinking about fictional characters when the book is done and you want at least one more chapter to wrap things up. I kept flipping the last page back and forth thinking there must be more. Anyway, the book is also sprinkled with lots of political statements, as most of those Russian books are, but they didn't overshadow the personal stories of all the patients, most of whom were pretty doomed. So many were very young...two with legs amputated...one 45 year old with a wife and four children who is eventually "cured" and released, but with the doctors really telling themselves, he'll be back. Oh, and that's another thing...they never tell a patient he's got cancer. They only say things like lymphoma, melanoma, carcinoma, etc. Of course, those are cancers...but they avoid the "c" word. We also meet the super compassionate doctors and nurses. The two main oncology and radiology doctors are women! One of them develops a very close relationship with Oleg, which they almost carry to the point of considering a future together...but in the end when he's discharged from the hospital, Oleg doesn't meet her as they planned. He realizes that he can't drag Vera back to his exile camp, away from her career, and towards a future with a man with nothing to his name and most likely no ability to procreate after his intense treatments. It was sad. :-( The other female doctor, the clinic leader, who has dedicated her life to the clinic and her patients, ends up sick herself by the end of the book with cancer of all things. Years and years of breathing in the radiation has mostly likely done her in as well. Anyway, I'm kind of just writing down a jumbling of thoughts. This is definitely one of those books that will resonate in me for awhile, but one I'm so glad I read!

Finished: Voyager (Gabaldon) Jamie and Claire are finally reunited in the third book of the Outlander series! A good book, rather long as all of them are. In Voyager, Claire does travel back in time with her daughter Brianna's blessing, to find the love of her life and Brianna's father, Jamie. Claire leaves Brianna with her blossoming love Roger, and though it breaks her heart to do so, they all know she must go. So, of course, Claire does find Jamie working under an assumed named. It's been twenty years so he faints...the big, strong Scottish dude faints when he sees Claire! There are a lot of things they need to tell each other that happened in those twenty years, i.e., love lives, careers, near deaths (lol), etc., but their love and attraction are as strong as ever and they soon fall back into each other's arms. Fergus, the young French boy Jamie pretty much adopted is there and now thirty years old! Also, Jamie's sister Jenny, her husband Ian, and their brood are all in tact. As a matter of fact...their youngest son, fourteen year old young Ian is the impetuous for the story as he is captured by pirates which leads Jamie and Claire on a voyage to Jamaica to bring him home. Eh, all the ship adventure stuff really wasn't my cup of tea, but I still couldn't stop reading. :-) Claire has a few surprise revelations about Jamie...like how he married the widowed Laoghaire (the girl who was in love with him in the first book and was responsible for having Claire nearly put to death as a witch) to keep her and her daughters out of harms way and provide for them. And, Claire finds out about Jamie's young son, Willie, late in the book. John Grey makes another appearance as the new Governor of Jamaica, and his love for Jamie is still very evident...another shock for Claire. However, he does help them find Ian and escape the clutches of the military who are still after the seditious Jamie. The biggest shocker of the book is that the person responsible for kidnapping young Ian is the very much alive Geillis Duncan, the "witch" from the first book. She's actually a fellow time-traveler like Claire and she has gone mad, presumably with syphilis. She plans to sacrifice Ian at an alter and time travel back to Claire and Jamie's daughter, who she believes to be the fated savior of Scotland and England, now that Geillis  knows of her existence. Mother bear Claire puts an end to Geillis  and Jamie, Claire and Ian flee the magic rocks on the island before they can suck Claire forward in time again. Yes, there is apparently more than one set of magic rocks throughout the world. So, once back on the boat, a huge hurricane hits and nearly kills them all. Shipwrecked on what they think is yet another island, but being cared for in a home by a nice lady....when Jamie and Claire ask where they are, the lady says, why, you're in the Georgia colony of America...and the book ends. So, book four will pick up with Jamie and Claire's (and young Ian's and Fergus') adventures in pre-Revolutionary War America I suppose. At least they can be themselves and Jamie no longer has to run from the law.  :-) I'm going to take a break from Jamie and Claire for awhile, now that they're together and read some other books I've been wanting to read!

Finished: Ah, Wilderness (O'Neill). I thought I'd try out what is supposed to be Eugene O'Neill's "funny" play, and it was pretty good. I really wanted to read another play of his after seeing his summer house. And, the house is apparently where he wrote Ah, Wilderness. The play wasn't as funny as I thought it would be, with many undertones that could take it to darker places, but I guess for the usually dark O'Neill, it was considered light, lol. Anyway...I'm glad to have read it! I was hoping that there was more of the town involved, since it was set on the 4th of July in the little coastal town of New London, Connecticut...but it was set mostly in the house and built around numerous family scenes. Nat Miller, who owns the local paper, his wife Essie, their children Arthur, 19, and a Yale student, Richard, 17, and a dramatic, poetry reader, Mildred, 15, and a flirty, typical teenage girl, and Tommy, 11, the youngest, along with Essie's brother, Sid, and Nat's sister, Lily, all live together in the big Victorian house. The underlying dark tones concern Sid and his drinking, and how it has apparently kept Sid and Lily from getting married all these years, even though they're in love. With the upcoming 4th of July picnic that the men are going to (I think it was a men's only thing at the club), Lily is nervous with anticipation that Sid will get drunk. He has promised to take her to the fireworks, but no...that doesn't happen. He does in fact get drunk and come home sloshed. The main thrust of the story is the lovesick Richard. He is in love with Muriel, the daughter of a business associate of Mr. Miller. Muriel's father has stormed over to the house to show Nat all the love letters that Richard has written Muriel, most of them using the poetry and language of "forbidden" authors. Even the thought that Richard's favorite authors seem to be Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw is disgraceful. Anyway, things come to a head between the fathers and before storming off, Muriel's father leaves a letter for Richard from Muriel (which unbeknownst to Richard, her father dictated), saying that she doesn't want to see him ever again. Richard becomes despondent over the news and ends up going off with one of his brother's college friends to a house of ill repute where one of the "ladies" tries to get him to go upstairs. He refuses to betray Muriel, even as mad as he is...but he does proceed to get very drunk...having the first drinks he's ever had. His parents wait up for him til he stumbles home at midnight, and his good old Uncle Sid takes care of him. All the next day he sleeps while his father and mother discuss punishing him. In the meantime, Muriel has sneaked a letter to Richard's sister, Mildred. In it she tells Richard that her father made her write the other letter and will he please meet her that night. She's sneaking out! Richard and Muriel meet and after a couple of quarrels, finally decide they are still in love, and what's more, she finally lets him kiss her! He declares that he'll stay home from Yale next year and get a job with his father so they can get married right away. She says, no, you need to go to college. Back at home, Nat and Essie are still discussing Richard's punishment, especially since he is out again without permission. However, this time he told Mildred to let them know where he was going and he'd accept his punishment later. When Richard gets home, his father finally tells him that he knows he learned his lesson about not drinking. (Earlier Richard had told his mother that is was awful and made him sick and he didn't want to do it again.) However, he still had to punish him to learn some responsibility, so maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't let him go to Yale the next year. Richard brightens up and says that's exactly what he would want, actually. Nat huffs around and says well then, you are definitely going to Yale and staying there until you graduate! And, that's about it. I mean...there were really too many depressing facets in it for me to consider it a comedy. I would look to Wilde and Shaw for their comedies wayyyyyy before I'd look to O'Neill. I suppose in that day and age, though, given all the depressing stuff he'd written, it was amazing that he wrote something that would draw some laughs. I must say that I thought his Beyond the Horizon, though very sad, was so much better. Glad I read it...now moving on. :-)

Finished: Dragonfly In Amber (Gabaldon) I am now hooked on this Outlander series! I don't know if I have the will to read the next six books in a row though. I might just start speaking with a Scottish brogue! I think I'll read a couple of other things before diving into the third book (though I really want to dive into the third book, lol). In the second book, the story starts 22 years after Claire has gone back through the stone from 1746 Scotland. Or, I should say it starts 222 years later...in 1968. She's now got a 21 year old daughter, Jamie's daughter, Brianna. Claire has taken Brianna back to Scotland, where the adventure began, to investigate what happened to all the clansmen she knew back in 1746. Had they all died at the horrible Battle of Culloden, where the Scottish clans followed "bonnie" Prince Charles into battle with the English Redcoats to try and take back the thrown? Claire knew because of history that it would be a slaughter, and the end of clans as they were known back then...and so she had warned her beloved Jamie. Claire has assumed all these years that Jamie died in battle after forcing her to go back through the stone into the future for the safety of herself and their unborn child. She waits until her first husband, Frank, who took her back after being gone three years, raising her child as his, has passed away before taking this new journey to Scotland. Once there, Claire sees a shocking reminder of Jamie and ends up blurting out the entire story to Brianna and Roger, the young boy who had been adopted by Frank's close associate and friend in the first book. Of course, Roger and Brianna feel instantly connected and most assuredly will become an item. Anyway, once Claire blurts out that she traveled back in time 200 years, and what's more, Brianna's father wasn't Frank after all, but really a clansman from 1746 named Jamie Fraser, the book heads back in time. It picks up two months from where it left off in book one. Claire is pregnant with Jamie's child, and they are both headed to France with a plan to try and stop Prince Charles from gathering the support and money needed to fund his battle campaign. To do this, Jamie must befriend the prince, and act as if he is, in fact, also one of the Jacobites. Lots of adventures and strives surround Claire and Jamie, as usual. For one thing...they come face to face with the presumably dead John "Black Jack" Randall who mercilessly abused Jamie, physically, emotionally and sexually in book one. They also meet Randall's younger brother, Alexander, who is a much nicer person. And...they discover that it was the Duke of Sandringham who made attempts on both of their lives while secretly funding the Jacobites, but outwardly speaking against them. Once again, I can't possibly recap the entire book. Claire, though, does lose her baby. :-( And, it takes 'til the end of the book for us, and Claire, and Jamie to find out she's pregnant again during the most dangerous time of this snippet of history. Jamie swears to Claire that he will first lead his small, loyal band of Scotsmen from his homestead Lallybroch to safety, and not let them die in the battle...and then that he'll turn around himself and go fight to the death rather than be taken by the English as a traitor. With a heartfelt goodbye, he insists that his beloved Claire go back through the stone to safety. Then, we are back in 1968 in the book. Brianna is furious at her mother, who she thinks has gone crazy. Roger actually believes her! Brianna finally believes her mother when she witnesses someone else "travel" through the stone. When they all come across information that Jamie may, in fact, have not died back in 1746, that is where the book ends. You can tell that in book three, Claire will go back 200 years to see her beloved Jamie, 20 years later. Sigh. It's a love story that I'm definitely hooked on. As I said, though, I don't think I can just delve into so many more books in a row. I think I'll read a couple of other things before going back to the series. :-)

Finished: Outlander (Gabaldon) I have really enjoyed reading this time-traveling love story between 1940's British, Claire and 1740's Scottish clansman, Jamie. Claire, a married nurse during World War II is on her 2nd honeymoon in Scotland after the war with her husband, Frank, who she has been separated from for five years during the war. Claire truly loves Frank, and they enjoy renewing their love. Frank is a historian and fills Claire's mind with all kinds of genealogical information about his family who he is in Scotland to research during the honeymoon. Frank takes Claire to the mystical giant slabs of stone, on the hill of Craigh na Dun, which are formed in a huge circle, and they witness the village women performing a centuries old dance around the stones. Claire goes back the next day to gather some flowers and feels drawn to one of the stones. She puts both her hands on the stone and is instantly transported into 1740's Scotland! She's in the middle of a battle between some clansmen and the British redcoats and, understandably disoriented, she at first thinks she's stumbled onto a movie set. When she comes face to face with her husband Frank's great-great-great-great-great grandfather, John Randall, a dangerous redcoat known as Black Jack, she's in extreme danger. Though she's rescued by a Scottish clansman, she's also forced to go along with HIM, because they're not sure who they've come upon! A British spy? A French spy? The clansman takes her back to a cabin where Dougal Mackenzie, the war chief for the Mackenzie clan has gathered a few men. Among them...the injured Jamie Mackenzie, his nephew The huge, rugged, handsome, copper-haired 23 year old Scot is in pain and holding a dislocated shoulder. Claire insists on jerking the shoulder back into place rather than letting one of the men do it and risk ruining it for good. They are all surprised at her skills, and in awe of her. She and Jamie share an instant connection. Even so, they will not let Claire go on her way. At this point, she just wants to try and get back to the stones to get back to Frank. She's realized she "fell" back into time. Dougal will not let her go, however. He takes her back to the Castle Leoch to his brother, the clan leader, Colum Mackenzie. The story becomes really complicated as we soon are not even sure whether to trust the motives of Colum and Dougal in regards to Jamie, their sister's son...whose real name is Jamie Fraser. He is in hiding from the British with a bounty on his head for a murder he did not commit. The story is too lengthy to tell and recap. Just know that Jamie and Claire become more and more attached and attracted to each other until they are forced to marry to save her from being turned over to the evil John Randall who they all have another run in with. He's the same evil being who had whipped Jamie to his near death the year before. Anyway...I love the story between Jamie and Claire. The book turns very dark in its second half. I'm watching the TV series, which is following the book pretty well, but I wonder if it will take the several dark turns in the second half of the TV show...including Jamie whipping Claire with a belt across her bum when she doesn't do as she says she will and stay hidden while he has a dangerous meeting. Captured by the evil John Randall when she doesn't stay hidden, Jamie and the rest of the Scotsmen are forced to put all their lives in danger to attempt Claire's rescue. They succeed but Jamie must teach Claire a lesson that she's simply got to understand their ways and not disregard what he says. Things turn even darker after Jamie is later captured and sent to prison and horribly abused emotionally, physically and sexually by the deviant John Randall. Claire mounts his rescue and nurses the near death Jamie back to health, but it's a long, upward battle. Finally at the end of the book, we are left with the cliffhanger of Claire hinting to Jamie that she's pregnant after they've been together for nearly a year. Oh, and before the story got too dark, Jamie and Claire made it back to his family home Lallybroch where he was reunited with his beloved sister, Jenny after many, many years, and her husband Ian and their toddler, little Jamie. Claire helps Jenny give birth to her new baby daughter days before Jamie is captured by the Brits and taken to the prison. I loved this book and am already ready to start reading the next looooonnnnggg book in the series! :-)

Finished: Close to Home (Jackson) Eh, not my favorite Lisa Jackson book, but ok for reading on the airplane. I never really became attached to any of the characters, since most of them weren't really that likable, and the story was super predictable. Usually her books are much more page-turning. And, this one had a couple of ghosts thrown in, which isn't really my cup of tea. Anyway, not bad, just not great either! On to Outlander I think!

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. :-)