Book Review: “Faithful Traitor” by Samantha Wilcoxson

Hello!

Back in mid-June, my mom surprised me one night with the fact that we now had Kindle Unlimited. At first, I was happy about it but as I was attempting to go online within five minutes after reading that text message, our WiFi turned off and both of my parents were in bed asleep. I had to wait roughly nine hours for them to get up and turn it back on, but once they did I began my search for my next book. However, I wasn’t even close to finishing my previous read: “Three Dark Crowns” by Kendare Blake. I really didn’t have to wait too long because I was running through it fast as lightning!

It was rough making my decision on my next read because I really wanted to go into a non-fiction but keep the same theme I was in the month before and as soon as I saw the cover, I knew it was apart of my Goodreads long TBR; it has been on my “to be read” list since 2017 and apparently it had been released a year earlier, so yeah, I’d been waiting quite a long time to check it out for myself.

---

Margaret Pole is no stranger to fortune’s wheel. From her childhood as firstborn of the heir apparent of England, she was brought low as the daughter of a traitor. After years of turmoil as the Tudor dynasty made its roots, Margaret finds favor with her cousin, King Henry VIII.

Will the remnant of the York dynasty thrive under this tempestuous king or will Margaret discover that there is a price to pay for having an excess of royal blood?

Step into Tudor England . . . .

taken from Goodreads.

---

Back in 2006, I was a freshman in high school and I was never into reading at all and my English teacher at the time, told all of us that if we didn’t find anything to read on Fridays that we would be forced to find something in the classroom to read, and this terrified me! So, within a week I discovered the fictional side of bookshelves, and I found out that I really enjoyed reading about people, both famous and lesser known, and I just loved seeing how people lived in certain time period and situations. So, in a way I give my former English teacher lots of credit to my love of the Tudor era.

When I first started reading this book, I thought it would be a biographical story of Margaret Pole, like when I read about her cousin Elizabeth of York by the author Alison Weir a few years ago, but in reality it is more fictionized than I had originally realized but after a couple chapters I actually grew to enjoy it this way. I haven’t had a lot of good luck staying interested in these types of books lately so, I was both concerned and thrilled at the same time!

So, the author has written this story as part of a Plantagenet series, starting with Elizabeth of York, who was at the heart of the War Of The Roses. She was a York princess that married the Lancastrian heir Henry Tudor, thus creating the beginning of the Tudor dynasty. This one is about her cousin. Elizabeth’s father was King Edward IV and Margaret’s father was his brother George, Duke Of Clarence. By the time we approach Margaret’s story, she is at home in Brockmar, with her husband Richard Pole and children: Henry, Arthur, Reginald, and Ursula after she has heard the news of her cousin’s death.

Every chapter goes by a certain month and year at the top, so unless you know your Tudor dates really well, you can keep track to the bigger moments happening. However, this is again, a fictionized tale of her life, which means some things are made up here and there, but I didn’t mind it at all.

I have always built up that wall that medieval women and girls – did the women always do what they were suppose to? Did they even bash an eye at things that maybe we would in modern times? I was basically forced to face reality and give these women more credit at shielding their true feelings. Between this book and the STARZ television series based on Philippa Gregory’s novels; I’ve tried to squash that state of mind and for Margaret, she had been through a lot in her lifetime, both good and bad moments in history, so it was much more difficult to stick to that mindset because honestly she had it rough, and I have felt very sympathic to her over in the last few years.

One thing I was a tiny bit confused was after the death of her husband, she did not want to depend on the court and her cousin King Henry VIII for the rest of her life. As she was marrying off her eldest son Henry, he was hoping a little bit too much on a role to the king and Margaret makes a point that she doesn’t want him to hope too much for that to happen. However, after his marriage, he does get promoted by the king as he turns into Lord Montague and Margaret is graced with her ancestral title Countess of Salisbury. The Countess becomes one of Catherine Of Aragon’s ladies in waiting and after the birth of Princess Mary, she turns into her governess.

It’s at this point that her role of staying out of royal affairs, especially in the aftermath of the divorce proceedings between Henry and Catherine, breaking away from the Roman Catholic church, and eventual news of Henry’s decision to make his daughter illegitimated, really makes everything go topsy-turvy for Margaret and her family. I will say, I figured that all of this would be a fast decline as far as reading, but it stayed really balanced and there was enough of the story where nothing was too chaotic in my mind. Unfortunately, I did know how things ended for Margaret in real life. So, when I got to that part, it was so incredibly sad. I was so into the story and would consider this Margaret as a friend, the downfall really made me emotional.

Now like I said in the beginning of this post, this is a series of three books and that means the next story is about Princess Mary and I’m thinking it will start at the death of Margaret since that’s how this book began, but I’m not really sure. I do want to read the other two, but if you are concerned if you need to start with book 1 and continue down the line, you really don’t have to do it that way, which I really seemed to enjoy the most.

Have you read “Faithful Traitor: The Story Of Margaret Pole” by Samantha Wilcoxson yet? Are you a lover of these types of fictionized stories about royals, whether they are current or medieval?

REVIEW | The Spanish Princess

Howdy!

Two weeks ago, we were given a free weekend of STARZ. It was for four days, but I found out about it on the 5th, I tried to take as much advantage as possible, but I was not happy with myself because I had started watching The Wife on demand on the 6th and wasn’t allowed to finish it. Thankfully, I din’t get too far into it so that helps out a lot. We did get a couple of new movies for our folder, but my main objective out of the whole thing was completing The Spanish Princess!

Even though, I have never read Philippa Gregory’s books about the Plantagenet and Tudor families, I have been a fan of the film and television versions. I actually became interested in Anne Boleyn after watching Natalie Portman play her in The Other Boleyn Girl. Unfortunately, after I saw The Tudors series created by Michael Hirst, and saw Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Natalie Dormer as King Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn, I was kind of blown away with their chemistry. so I haven’t been able to watch the previous ever since.

Backstory

I have talked about The White Queen on here, so it’s only right to continue sharing my thoughts about this third series about Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine was the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. At the time when women were looked upon as the lesser sex to royal, these two were co-rulers and fought hard to stay together for the sake of both kingdoms. After Henry Tudor became king and married Elizabeth of York, they welcomed their first son, Arthur, Prince Of Wales. Once he was born, it was important to send a message to everyone that he was the true heir of the English empire, so Henry sought out an opportunity between royal families and arranged a marriage between Arthur and the youngest princess of the Spanish throne: Catherine of Aragon, thus she would become the Princess Of Wales.

Since I know the story of the end of Catherine and Henry VIII’s relationship ends and the fact that he breaks away from the Catholic faith to be able to divorce her in the first place,. it was honestly so hard to learn of how much he loved her after his brother Arthur died. So, being able to watch it flourish on screen in a very fictional way, was a bit difficult but it also made me love the strength of Catherine even more. I have been a strong supporter to Anne Boleyn for many, many years but the way she was treated is so heartbreaking even now.

What I Really Thought

What I really liked about this series was the fact that it gave you all of the stories of Catherine’s life while in England, as she was the wife of both heirs to the throne. And what was left after the final episode of The White Princess, so there’s the story of Margaret Pole and her family. You even get a snippet of Princess Margaret in the process of becoming the newly wife and Queen of Scotland.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this series over the others were you got another element to the story, Catherine came with many ladies-in-waiting when she first came to England, but the two that were featured on the show: Lina and Rosa were very helpful because you got to see their point of view being apart court life. If you were a ladies-in-waiting to the Queen or Princesses, you had a better chance in marrying into a wealthy family. So, the fact that their stories were featured will tell what’s to come when they finally start talking about the Boleyn sisters. As they were both ladies-in-waiting to Catherine.

I have to say, if you hated Margaret Beaufort in the previous series, you definitely will not like her in this one either! I still don’t think she ever acted like that though, but I do believe she loved her son very much and knew in her heart that he deserved the throne because of his bloodline, but the way she is portrayed towards others was really rude! I don’t know if it was because she was getting older and her attitude needed to be even worse than before. The last episode actually made me cry a little because as she realizes her only son, the King has died, we are given a flashback of the day she gave birth to him at 13 years old. You quickly realize that this was a real person, she had a difficult time as both a mother and woman of the differentiating crown.

I think Charlotte Hope, Angus Imrie and Ruairi O’Connor were amazing! I was a bit worried because I didn’t want to judge Charlotte, who plays Catherine because she didn’t look like she could pass for someone in the Spanish Royal family, but I was quickly told by many other fans of the series and supporters of Queen Catherine in general that she never looked like a true Spanish woman like what we would consider one today, and that the real Catherine of Aragon had strawberry-blonde hair! As a historian of any kind, it is normal to find out what you’ve been told all this time is really false, so you can literally deny the claims or accept it and go forward.

After I finished, I was happy that I managed to complete all 8 episodes in basically two days but I knew what is to come and instantly became depressed because they literally bleed out their emotions that I will be lucky to make it through in one piece! Thankfully it’ll take a little more time for them to film season two, but internally I am not ready for it!

What did think of The Spanish Princess? How are you with these fictionalization stories of these big historical figures? Who do you think they should talk about next, Anne Boelyn, Princess Mary, or Mary, Queen of Scots?

REVIEW | The White Queen

Hey guys!

So I’ve been really into different TV shows lately! I’ve surprised myself at times because they’ve been about almost everything! I’ve decided to review three or four, whatever I choose to talk about for the next couple of weeks.

First up was shown on the network Starz one night. I’ve only seen it on my guide probably two times in my whole life and apparently it’s only been that one episode they air. I watched The White Queen! Back in February, I watched The Tudors and that took up quite a bit of my time and I really enjoyed it, mostly because of the stories of King Henry VIII and his wives, daughters, and counselors. It was all very interesting to me because I’m so into that part in history, but The White Queen predates him. The story is about Elizabeth Woodville, a widow and mother of two boys who meets King Edward IV and they fall in love, get married in secret and she comes to court with her family and everything turns very ugly. She is not accepted into Edward’s family: George, Richard and Cecily, the Duchess.

The show not only tells the story of this section of the family, but also of the Warwick family who are cousins of Edward, George, and Richard. Lord Richard Warwick made Edward king giving him the nickname “The Kingmaker”. The story goes on to discuss the daughters of Lord Warwick who were Isabel (she married the oldest brother George) and youngest daughter Anne who married firstly Edward of Westminster while her father tried to win the throne over Edward IV for her brother-in-law George. This Edward dies in battle and she later becomes a wife to the younger brother of the king, Richard. The addition of the first Tudor family is mentioned with Lady Margaret Beafort who gave birth to Henry Tudor who would later become King Henry VII of England and it talks about the ups and downs of both of their lives as this reign of the King and Queen goes on!

Sorry if any of this confuses you! Since almost every name I’ve heard in both The White Queen and The Tudors repeats throughout things can get very confusing! Anyways, the stories of this family and “War Of The Roses” actually comes from a series of books from Phillippa Gregory and the books, “The White Queen, The Red Queen, and The Kingmaker’s Daughter”. The first book was on my to be read list on Goodreads at one time and so was a book called The Princes In The Tower which the shows talks about towards the end.

If you decide to watch the show, I should probably tell you the whole thing is one whole season. Yeah, that wasn’t very loved by me because I wanted it to be longer!  After I was finished, hell even while I was in the middle of the second episode I couldn’t help keeping myself after from looking ahead and reading different articles about the families, because I was wondering how much of it was true. You get that way after watching The Tudors like crazy! You also become like this when the whole timeline is turned into 22 episodes. Even you know the writers left out a bunch of different things! So I guess that would be its only downfall. I liked the conflict between all of the characters, I really liked the storyline between Richard and Anne towards the end. And what I found about Richard as I watched the last episode was very interesting! Another love I had were the women’s braids. They were so gorgeous!

Have you watched The White Queen? What do you like or dislike about it?

More information about Richard:

http://www.archaeology.org/slideshow/508-king-richard-iii-england-bones-skeleton

REVIEW | The Girlfriend Experience

I’ve done it again! I’ve started watching a new series on Starz. Ever since Flesh And Bone ended I’ve been really sad because it was something that I really looked forward to on Sunday nights. Now I’m watching this show called The Girlfriend Experience. 

One of the differences between Flesh And Bone and this one is that I had seen promos as early from July and the show didn’t premiere until early November. I had only known about this series for maybe a month or so. I knew early on that it wouldn’t be a show I would able to watch in the middle of the night without having to explain to my dad why I’m watching a show about a woman who is working as an high-end escort. I’m still trying to figure out why I wanted to watch it in the first place.

The way I publish this review will be after the second week, so I won’t be including my thoughts about that episode. Just the first two episodes called “Entry” and “A Friend.”

Normally when you watch a show on TV, there’s a small introduction of who stars in the show followed by the names of crew. Well, there’s no little written names at the bottom of the screen or an actual theme song, so I had to look up who plays the main character Christie Reade, who is an intern at a law firm and she still goes to law school with her friend Avery who works as an escort. She’s generally the one that gets Christine interested into the deal in the first place. However, Christine seems like a very adventurous person sexually speaking considering she and Avery go to a bar and she finds a guy at the bar and sleeps with him. So you already have this vibe that she’s always been curious about escorting, or at least that’s what I got while watching that first episode.

The second episode she actually gets her picture taken very boudoir and starts working with Avery’s I want to say manager, but I don’t think that’s right. It’s still pretty close considering anything the girls are comfortable with doing with their clients she gets about 30% of the amount. This person, Jacqueline is her name books her clients and offers to pay a deposit on Christine’s new experience apartment that she ends up having to share with Avery at the end of the second episode because the client she was living with asked her to leave. Anyways, in the course of both episodes Christine has about three different clients.

While I was watching the first episode, it was pretty interesting. The actress Riley Keough, at times reminded me of Kristen Stewart in Twilight very timid and quiet. You want to know what she’s thinking in her head in different scenes. She also reminds me of Emma Watson in some senses, especially when she dresses up all fancy. The waviness of her hair made me think of Emma. One of the main things I like whenever I feel like is because the lighting around, it’s very dark and almost murky. It creates a very raw atmosphere. I’ve only heard of the bad side of escorting and from seeing the previews for the later episodes, it could turn bad for Christine or Chelsea as she’s called by her clients. I sense something goes down with keeping those two personalities and jobs separate. I see her or maybe Avery fucking something up in the near future!

Have you watched The Girlfriend Experience yet? What are your thoughts on it?

 

Movies I Want To See In 2016 | First Half

One of the things I mostly get excited for is the new movies that are coming out! I usually never go out to the theaters or anything, but it’s the build-up of these new films and your favorite actors/actresses playing these characters that really excite me! After 2014’s flop of new movies I had seen, I really wanted to watch as many as I could in 2015, plus any specials like Flesh And Bone on Starz and documentaries like Sinatra: All Or Nothing and Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck on HBO. I was pretty proud on what I allowed myself to watch and be dedicated for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to watch all of the movies I looked forward to seeing in 2015. I still like to hold out and maybe they’ll turn up on some of our movie channels. I finally got to watch The Avengers: Age Of Ultorn on Starz. They premiered it on January 22nd! I’m hoping Starz or HBO airs Age Of Adaline so I don’t have to ask anybody to rent it out for me. What am I doing? This post is supposed to be about the films coming out this year! Since I loved doing these posts last year, I’ve decided to separate them out in equal parts. This will be for the ones being released in January to June 2016!

Dirty Grandpa (January 22nd) starring Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, and Julienne Hough

I don’t know how my sister would be so lucky to get a Zac Efron movie to come out on her birthday, but oh well! I saw a picture advertising this new film on Facebook. Julienne Hough had posted a picture and a little bit about her character. It wasn’t until like two days later that I found the trailer while on YouTube and I realized how bad I wanted to see this! I think it’s going to be very strange Robert De Niro playing such a flirt with Zac Efron, but that’s just me!

The Choice (February 5th) starring Benjamin Walker and Teresa Palmer

I’ll be honest, I watched the trailer for this and I was really turned off by the concept of this story. Maybe it’s because I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think I’ve also watched my fair share of Nicholas Sparks inspired films that I’m just over it. I just want to watch it because it has Teresa Palmer in it!

Deadpool (February 12th) starring Ryan Renyolds and Morena Baccarin

Everybody has had this movie on their lists since the beginning of last year. I’m still confused though, I thought Deadpool was a villain. I mean has anybody else seen Wolverine: Origins before? He and Wolverine have at it towards the end… I think this film will be a mixture of funny and lots of action, which I love the most!

Fun fact: If I watch this, it’ll be my first movie I’ve watched with Ryan Reynolds in it! 

Triple 9 (February 26th) starring Aaron Paul, Woody Harrelson, Norman Reedmus, and Kate Winslet

This is another movie I found by chance. I kind of fell in love with the trailer because it’s not about superheros or romance, it’s that “real” action and story line to it. I just want to see a movie with Norman Reedmus in it. I just want to see this guy act without all of the zombies, don’t judge me! It does look really good though!

Zootopia (March 4th) starring Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman

You can thank my friend Brittany for putting the trailer of this one on my Facebook the other day, I hadn’t even heard of it and of course now I want to see it! It just looks so cute! I’m not a big fan of sloths, but this trailer just cracked me up! I would be acting the same way that little bunny Judy was if somebody talked to me that slow!

Allegiant (March 18th) starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Miles Teller

I’ve officially caught up on these movies! Thank god! I’m really curious about the next stage of the storyline for Four and Tris. I want to know about what’s outside of the Wall and what are Evelyn’s intentions now that Jeannie is gone. I’m hoping this answers some questions for me, but I am super excited for the next installment to come out!

Superman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice (March 25th) starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Even Peters, and Gal Gadot

I feel like I should have ended this list right here, because my excitement for this sucker is bigger than anything else! I honestly haven’t watched Man Of Steel since the end of 2014 because it effected me so much but I am really looking forward to seeing this purely because I want to see Ben Affleck prove EVERYBODY wrong as his role as Batman. Plus, Gal Gadot is playing “Wonder Woman” YES PLEASE! ♥

The Huntsman: Winters War (April 22nd) starring Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Emily Blunt, and Jessica Chastain

This is another one that has me all confused but apparently not enough that I didn’t leave it off the list! I have to say I loved Snow White and The Huntsman a lot! Mostly because of Charlize Theron playing this dark, evil character. Now I got two of them: Charlize and Emily Blunt. Two of my woman crushes in one movie, and on top of that you got Chris Hemsworth back playing the Huntsman. We finally get to see his character before he was sent off to find Snow White and what happened to his wife in the process. I don’t know if it’s a pre-squeal or not, I’m just excited!

Captain America: Civil War (May 6th) starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Mackie, and Scarlett Johannson

Time for a little Captain America/Iron Man action! I’m so freaking excited to see this movie! I’ll be wearing my Captain America shirt with pride the opening weekend. I can’t say anything else about this one!

X-Men: Apocalypse (May 27th) starring  James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender,  and Jennifer Lawrence

I’m really curious about this installment of the X-Men series! We finally get to see some of our favorites as younger/trying to learn to control their powers like Storm and Jean! I’m really stoked about the fact that Jubilee is being featured in the movie! When I was younger, I used to watch the cartoon episodes on Boomarang and she was my favorite character outside of Charles and Storm!  

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (June 3rd) starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett, and Stephan Arnell

The first film was amazingly good, like I’m being serious! It was also the movie my sister and I went to see in theaters. I’m pretty sure this was my choice because if Blondie had chosen it would have been a scary movie and I would have killed it even before the ending! Before this, I hadn’t been out to the movies since 2012. We weren’t raised on X-Men, TMNT, etc growing up. So we weren’t familiar with the franchise as everybody else.

Since we enjoyed the first film so much we’re actually looking forward to this next installment. I’m pretty sure we’ll be adding Brandon into our movie date, but that’s okay with me because he’s the one who sent the trailer to me! I didn’t even know that it was out yet. He sent it to me with a caption saying “The Flash is in it!” And you all think I’m superhero obsessed!!

Finding Dory (June 17th) starring Ellen DeGenres, Diane Keaton, and Ty Burrell

I loved Finding Nemo so much!! It’s such a cute, sad movie. I’ve seen those theories all over Facebook about the backstory of Nemo’s dad and Dory, but nonetheless it’s still adorable! Now that Dory’s getting her own movie, I’m a bit in the middle as I doubt it’ll stand up to Finding Nemo’s success but you never know!

Independence Day: Resurgence (June 24th) starring Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, and Liam Hemsworth

This is also another film I’m feeling iffy about as I grew up with the original. My mom tried to save herself from what happened when I watched Men In Black the first time. Let’s just say between the both of them, I was not a fan of aliens. I still cringe at certain scenes in both films! I am glad that Jeff and Judd are back in the reboot, but would it better with Will Smith? Absolutely! Can I settle for Liam Hemsworth instead? Why did I just ask myself that question when I already know the answer? 😀

What are some of the movies you’re looking forward to seeing in the first six months of 2016?

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin