HarperCollins The Wise Woman, Contemporary Fiction, Paperback, Philippa Gregory
1862 ratings
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Price: £9.99
Brand: HarperCollins
Description: Reissue of Philippa Gregory's disturbing novel of passion and betrayal in Tudor England. HarperCollins The Wise Woman, Contemporary Fiction, Paperback, Philippa Gregory - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Harper Collins
Product ID: 9780006514640
Delivery cost: Spend £20 and get free shipping
Dimensions: 129x198mm
Keywords: Yorkshire,Reformation,Witchcraft,Herbalists
ISBN: 9780006514640
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Author: M Tomlinson
Rating: 5
Review: A genuinely interesting read. I have read some of.Philippa Gregory's other books and enjoyed them but this is not the same. I get the sense that she wrote this earlier before.she was.famous, and I can see some of.the themes.coming through in The White Queen and Lady of.the Rivers. This is.not for.everyone. If you're looking for genre historiclanfiction or.romance.with happy ending then this is not it. The Wise Woman is a thrilling and interesting read however. Like Game of.Thrones it departs.from an expected storyline so you don't know what's happening next. The sense of.place and.detail and actually the characters are better developed.than Gregory's better known books. Those are plus points, but. I'll warn you it is weird in places. In many ways the heroine good person turned.bad is more interesting than sample "struggling vs adversity".. this is quite thought provoking. What happens when.a.religiousnsystem everyone grew up with, and which governed.everything, is ripped.apart? Add that to a popular imagination which is alive withbwitchcraft, especially in the Pennines and you have the milieu for.The Wise Woman. As.for.the sex scenes, don't get excited. They are meant to gross u s out I think. They're certainly not titillating or erotic, which is a shame and perhaps a failure of nerve on Gregory's part. Witchcraft and sex I mean, come on. There were all kinds of possibilities to integrate this into the plot. She could have written some hot scenes but I feel she funked it. This is a good.read. not enough fiction books are.different or interesting. Give it a try, but don't expect run-of-the-mill. Please excuse typing on my kindle
Author: Hippolyta
Rating: 2
Review: I usually love Phillippa Gregory's historical novels. They're accurate (as far as I know), keep my interest and zip along at a lively rate. I was expecting her usual detail and precision for 'The Wise Woman', but became seriously disillusioned about a quarter of the way through. It starts well enough - the heroine 'seems like a nice girl who just can't fight city hall'. Somehow you know she's going to put one over on the nasty, men in power - but then she'll become just as nasty as them in the process. So nothing too original there. The story slightly parallels that of Catherine of Aragon -versus- Anne Boleyn. Even the names of the two main female protagonists are the same, although the 'Ann' of this book is usually called Alys and she's only called 'Ann' when she's in nun-mode. I think what turned me off the story was the unreality of some of it. I don't really think that wax candles fashioned into voodoo dolls can come to life. The black magic aspects of the story are too fantastical and detract from the reality of what could be a rattling good bodice-ripper. There's just a little too much 'wax' in whatever form, throughout the book, for my taste. I don't like the constant use of the word 'gleamed' to describe 'glimmering eyes'. Certainly 'gleam' is defined in the OED as 'shine with a faint or intermittent brightness' but it doesn't sit quite right with what eyes do. This is a small, picky point but it annoys me whenever it appears. I don't know how the older nun escapes from the insecapable blaze from which only Ann/Alys originally flees. Alys is consequently haunted by her cowardly dessertion of all she loved most. Is Hildebrande also a witch then or has the author simply forgotten to tell us how she miraculously reappears? And how does she survive on her own in Morach's hovel without heat, light, water or food - until Alys/Ann finds her again goodness how long after she arrived? There's not a single character who I really like or find I can 'identify with'. The heroine is inconsistent, one minute an innocent, bald child, next a long-haired vixen who knows just about everything a girl can know with just a couple of years' education. The hero is a complete dolt - one minute evil, next minute heroic, then a drug-addled buffoon, then a loving husband and expectant father, then back to being a drug-addled buffoon. Totally non-believable whatever mantle he's wearing. Is he supposed to be the Henry VIII character in keeping with the first 2 wives 'heroines'? Hmmm! What actually happened to Morach? Did she really turn into a hare and bunny-hop her way into a flooding river? Again, Hmmm! I'm not inclined to start reading it again just to find the source of my disillusionment so I've only really read it through once. Perhaps if I read it again at some future date I'll enjoy it more? Doubtful though.
