Lady of The Roses by Sandra Worth

During her short time as a ward in Queen Marguerite's Lancastrian court, fifteen-year-old Isobel has had many suitors ask for her hand, but the spirited beauty is blind to all but Yorkist Sir John Neville. It is nothing short of a miracle when the Queen allows Isobel's marriage to the enemy, albeit at a hefty price.

All around Isobel and John rages a lawless war. It is only their passion that can see them through the bloody march on London by the Duke of Somerset, the violent madness of Queen Marguerite, and the devolution of Isobel's meek uncle into the Butcher of England. For theirs is an everlasting love that fears not the scratch of thorns, from either the Red Rose or the White.

I’ve been hearing lots of things about Sandra Worth and when the opportunity came to read this book I couldn’t let it pass. Especially as it is set during the Wars of the Roses which is a period in the history of England that I like to read about.

Lady of the Roses is about Isobel, a young heiress who grows up a ward of the crown – the crown being Queen Margaret of Lancaster – but falls in love with John Neville, a member of the House of York and brother of Warwick the Kingmaker. For a while they looked like star-crossed lovers that wouldn’t be able to overcome the enmity between Lancaster and York but after the Neville family pays a large amount for her Isobel is allowed to marry John.

I did enjoy knowing their story and I think Worth expertly engages the reader in her tale, I can’t remember when it was that another book made me run to the nearest encyclopaedia to know who was who and what happened when. Although I have already read several books set in the period I don’t think I had ever payed much attention to John Neville in a family where several people have the same name is really useful to have a family tree in the beginning of the book.

While Isobel is the main character, I think it is John that emerges as the voice of reason and the symbol of honour in a difficult period. The way Worth describes him made me think of SKP’s The Sunne in Splendour and Richard III. Maybe, just maybe, they are a bit too good to be true but making them so human certainly makes for wonderful characters. By marrying John Isobel joins one of the most powerful families of the land at the time and through her eyes we see the main political events of the time.

Anyone interested in knowing how the Wars of The Roses started has a good explanation here. Although I can’t really vouch for all the details being correct I think the main idea is the right one. The only thing I wasn't too happy with is that the two queens - Margaret of Lancaster and Elizabeth Woodville - sound a bit too bad to be true, not that they couldn’t possibly have been that bad (and mad in Margaret’s case) but I think they must have been more subtle about it. On the other hand, I felt the same about Isobel's uncle and it seems he really was as bad as Worth describes him so maybe those two were that way too.

A very interesting read with the "holes" in history being nicely filled with story.

Grade: 4.5/5

Sandra Worth on Why I Love the War of the Roses

Let me count the ways--

Cinderella, Romeo-and-Juliet, King Arthur and the tales of the Round Table, Harry Potter and Democracy-- what do they all have in common? The Wars of the Roses!

I'm a romantic, addicted to fairy tales. I grew up devouring them as a child, and when I'd read them all, I wrote my own. One day, when I was eleven, someone passed me a novel set in medieval England. I put my nose into it, and eight hundred pages later when I took it out, I flipped to the beginning of the book and put my nose right back in. I kept doing that until I lost the book! My fascination lay in the fact that the story was about girls in long dresses and men in shining armor, and love, just like my fairy tales. Except it was all true. I had discovered a real world of fairy tales for grown-ups!

Unfortunately, I learned that the lives of real princes and princesses didn't end as happily in these adult fairy tales as they had in my childhood ones, but the tales were so fascinating, I couldn't give up this amazing new world. That first book had touched my heart so deeply, I needed medieval history for the rest of my life! When I came to write my own novels, I found the Wars of the Roses absolutely riveting. It is an extraordinary period, alive with ordinary people making their sacrifices for love, honor and country, and struggling to live up to their ideals in an uncertain world. In the process, they become extraordinary and larger than life. As I wrote at the very beginning of my first book, In a tumultuous period of peril and intrigue, reversals of fortune and violent death, when the passions of a few determine the fate of a nation, and change the course of history...

The Wars of the Roses are all about passion, and girls in long dresses, and men in white armor. Here, the good, the bad, and the ugly of humankind are writ large. One of the good (believe it or not!) was Shakespeare’s villain, King Richard III, who was said to have murdered his little nephews, the princes in the Tower-- along with a long laundry list of other close relatives. But don't believe everything you read. That's just a Tudor myth.


Richard was born in 1452, as this era of violence began, and he died in 1485, as the violence ended. This young, idealistic king was raised on tales of King Arthur's court, and passed laws to protect the innocent. He brought justice to the common man, and three hundred years later, his ideals flowered into American democracy. In his personal life, Richard III was an exemplary knight. He rescued the girl he loved from the kitchen where she toiled as a scullery maid--perhaps inspiring Charles Perrault to write his Cinderella three hundred years later. It seems to have been a sort of family tradition because Richard's uncle of Montagu married a girl from the enemy side of the two warring factions of York and Lancaster-- perhaps inspiring Shakespeare's to write Romeo and Juliet a hundred years later.

Meanwhile, Sir Thomas Malory, a Yorkist knight fighting on Richard's side, wrote the tales of King Arthur in Richard's lifetime, and entitled his book Morte D'Arthur. It was published by William Caxton with his Guttenberg press.

Now, we come to Harry Potter. The similarities between the stories of Harry Potter and Richard III have been fodder for Ricardians since J.K. Rowling first published her books. But what of the hero himself? Like Harry Potter, RIII was an orphan. He was alone in a dangerous world, facing difficult choices from an early age. Thanks to his situation, he had to make his decisions without any adult guidance, and his answers had to come from within himself. Llike Harry Potter, the choices he made would affect his own life, and those of many others, changing the course of human history. The difference is that in Richard’s case it’s all true.

The Wars of the Roses is a fascinating time, rich with characters good and bad -- and it's addictive. Step in, and like me, I'll wager you'll find it very hard to leave! It's all just too much fun.



Sandra Worth is the author of the Rose of York series, set during the tumultuous War of the Roses. Her latest book is The King's Daughter: A Novel of the First Tudor Queen and it is being released on December 2. It is about Elizabeth of York - daughter of King Edward IV, niece of Richard III, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII, and yet not really a lot has been written about her before now! Check out Sandra's website for more information about her books.

Thanks for taking the time to post for us Sandra!

Upcoming Release: The King's Daughter by Sandra Worth

The War of the Roses has to be one of the most fascinating periods in history, and yet very little is known about Elizabeth of York, despite the fact that she was daughter of one King, niece to another, wife to yet another and finally mother and grandmother to two of the greatest monarchs in British History.

Sandra Worth attempts to rectify this in her new book that is due out on 2 December. Here's the blurb:

In this groundbreaking novel, award-winning author Sandra Worth vibrantly brings to life the people's Queen, "Elizabeth the Good."

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth of York trusts that her beloved father's dying wish has left England in the hands of a just and deserving ruler. But upon the rise of Richard of Gloucester, Elizabeth's family experiences one devastation after another: her late father is exposed as a bigamist, she and her siblings are branded bastards, and her brothers are taken into the new king's custody, then reportedly killed.

But one fateful night leads Elizabeth to question her prejudices. Through the eyes of Richard's ailing queen she sees a man worthy of respect and undying adoration. His dedication to his people inspires a forbidden love and ultimately gives her the courage to accept her destiny, marry Henry Tudor, and become Queen. While her soul may secretly belong to another, her heart belongs to England . . .