Queen by Right Anne Easter Smith includes giveaway

From the award-winning author of A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, and The King’s Grace comes another masterful historical novel—the story of Cecily of York, mother of two kings and the heroine of one of history’s greatest love stories.


Anne Easter Smith’s novels are beloved by readers for their ability “to grab you, sweep you along with the story, and make you fall in love with the characters.”


In Cecily Neville, duchess of York and ancestor of every English monarch to the present day, she has found her most engrossing character yet. History remembers Cecily of York standing on the steps of the Market Cross at Ludlow, facing an attacking army while holding the hands of her two young sons. Queen by Right reveals how she came to step into her destiny, beginning with her marriage to Richard, duke of York, whom she meets when she is nine and he is thirteen. Raised together in her father’s household, they become a true love match and together face personal tragedies, pivotal events of history, and deadly political intrigue. All of England knows that Richard has a clear claim to the throne, and when King Henry VI becomes unfit to rule, Cecily must put aside her hopes and fears and help her husband decide what is right for their family and their country. Queen by Right marks Anne Easter Smith’s greatest achievement, a book that every fan of sweeping, exquisitely detailed historical fiction will devour.

Back in my pre blogging days I read and loved Sharon Kay Penman's Sunne in Splendour which was predominantly about Richard III. Reading that book sent me on a journey through lots of Ricardian fiction and one of my favourite reads at that time was Anne Easter Smith's debut novel A Rose for the Crown. In the nearly five years since I read that book, I had intended to read more from this author. With this new book, Queen by Right, I finally got around to actually doing so.

There can be no doubting whether Anne Easter Smith is for York or Lancaster when it comes to deciding which side she would have backed had she had to pick side in the war of the Roses, or at least there isn't much doubt based on the two books I have read so far. That should be sufficient warning to expect that York is good and Lancastrian is pretty much not!

Having now read most of this book, I must say I am a little amazed that we haven't heard more about Cicely's life before now. She has always been mentioned in books about Edward and Richard, her two sons who both ruled England, but Anne Easter Smith manages to give Cicely's story depth and interest all of it's own.

The novel opens with the woman who has been known as the Rose of Raby due to her beauty and also as Proud Cis for her bearing, grace and dignity. Now though, she is deep in mourning. Her beloved husband is dead, as are several of her other family members, and now she must find a way to carry on and support her remaining children.

Looking back retrospectively we see her meet and fall in love with her husband Richard and follow their lives together through their time in France and Ireland, parenting their many children and then to the conflict that pitted the Yorks against the formidable and nasty Margaret of Anjou, known through history as a she-wolf. Whilst battling for the rewards due to a man of his stature, Richard walks a fine line between loyalty and treachery against King Henry.

Of Cicely personally we meet a devout woman who believes passionately in the Virgin Mary. Her spiritual development is affected pretty early on as a result of the interactions that the book suggests she had with Jeanne de Arc. I am not sure that there is much historical basis, but with the timing all fitting, this part of the narrative has made it possible for the reader to view some of the most famous events of the time through the eyes of Cicely. Coincidentally, today is the anniversary of the death of the saint known to most of us as Joan of Arc.

As much as I have enjoyed reading this book, there are a couple of small things that I feel that I should mention. The first relates to Cicely and Richard's sex life. Whilst the scenes are not overly graphic in nature, I am not sure that we needed to be present for the conception of practically every child she had (and there were a lot!).  The second thing was that there appeared to be times where the author lost track of some of the characters, particularly the children, and keeping all of the key players straight in the conflicts later in the book was some times a little difficult. These are minor complaints though.

For the most part, we are given a fascinating glimpse into the life of a woman who is ancestor to nearly every king or queen of England since her death, was mother to two kings, and who seems to have left more of an imprint in the pages of historical fiction than a lot of other women of her time.

Luckily for me, I have two more of Anne Easter Smith's books sitting on my shelf that I can go back and read!


Thanks to Amy from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for organising the blog tour that this post is part of and for arranging for me to receive an e ARC.

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Thanks to HF Virtual Blog Tours and  the publishers we have a copy of Queen by Right to give away! 



- open to US residents
- leave a comment and don't forget your email address
- the contest closes June12 at midnight GMT

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 . . .