Tome Thursday: Stormbird

Hello everyone!

So I almost forgot about this blog tonight, mainly because I've had my head all over the place. I need to get a big board and hang it on the wall beside my desk so I can pin important stuff there or write what needs to be done in really big letters haha! Or maybe I need to find a gadget for my computer desktop so I can make post-it notes on it ... then again, actual post-its might work even better if I put them down in bright colours, right?

Back to the blog, since I digress, before Christmas I went to the capital to meet up with my cousins and take my sister home for the holidays, but I had some time to kill before our meeting and, as is usually the case when I'm in Ljubljana, I ended up at the bookshop (and by this, I mean the biggest bookshop in the city, obviously). I wasn't planning on taking anything home with me, seeing as I didn't want to drag along a ton of books.

BUT.

I saw two books by Conn Iggulden from his new 'Wars of the Roses' series, and I just had to have them.

I finished Stormbird a couple of days ago, and this is the first one of the series which begins right at the time when England is negotiating a marriage for Henry VI with Margaret of Anjou. But before I plunge straight into the book itself, let me say a couple of words about why I picked the books up.

I love Conn Iggulden. I'm not joking, I think he might be my favourite author of historic fiction to date, and knowing me and my love of history, that's saying something. I usually have at least one or two historic books in the works. I wasn't that impressed with his 'Emperor' series to begin with, but I think I might have just started reading that at a bad time. I'm revisiting it now. His 'Conqueror' one, however? Sign me up, please! THAT one is probably my favourite, hands down.

So when I saw that he was starting a new series, and this time one on my favourite part of English history? I squealed like a little fangril, and yes, I needed to take the books with me, simple as that.

Back to Stormbird.

We actually first get a glimpse of an earlier period when the man who fathered the different Dukes who would later found the Yorks and Lancasters dies, so we get a sense of what's to come in the Plantagenet royal line. But then it's straight into the politics of the time, and we follow the story through the negotiations for Henry and Margaret's marriage, the actual wedding, the way the young Queen adapts to England, and unrest in France and England after the loss of Anjou and Maine in France (as part of the marriage contract), which leads into full-fledged war between England and France. Not to mention, English uprisings, most notably the one under Jack Cade. The book starts with a weak king - and ends with Richard, Duke of York, as Portector of the realm since Henry is now prone to fits and insensible a lot of the time.

Now, I enjoyed the storyline. I had read Philippa Gregory's 'Women of the Cousins' War' series (wait, I still have the last one to finish!) and I knew the period well enough, but I also knew when I started that this would be no love story or tale of a woman. Iggulden's main characters are strong, fearless, male leaders (Caesar and Genghis Khan). So prior to reading Stormbird I tried to envision who would he pick as the central character.

I thought for a moment it might be the spymaster, named Derry Brewer, because a lot of the book is from his point of view; but then it changed to William De La Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and I thought it might be HIM. And then we had Margaret of Anjou, Jack Cade, Thomas Woodchurch (an archer from Maine, France), Richard, Duke of York ...

There was no main perspective.

THAT kind of threw me, because it read a bit more like Game of Thrones then than any other Iggulden book, and it got confusing sometimes by the sheer number of characters with no central voice to connect them. Did it take away from the retelling of the story? No. I enjoyed reading about battle sequences (which is weird for a girl, I know), although even I have to admit that we probably got the message about English archers and how good they are the third time that was mentioned. 

What did bother me just a little was how the author decisively took the Lancaster side of things in this book, definitely being pro Henry and Margaret, painting Richard of York as the devil in disguise. Now, I'm not saying he wasn't malignant - but neither was Margaret an innocent girl, either. This feud became so prominant in history BECAUSE of the fact that both sides did equally attrocious deeds during the war! So I was a little bit disappointed in this, but I'm hoping the second book might change perspectives a little. Here's hoping.

And finally, about the title: nowhere in the book is it actually descibed why Iggulden chose 'Stormbord'. Not directly, at least.

BUT.

There is a moment, as Jack Cade and his army are marching towards London, right before they cross the bridge, when he hears birds singing in the bushes. Now these birds, according to what his mother used to tell him, were harbingers of summer storms. He, contrary, thinks that there definitely will be a storm - and he's bringing it to London, in the form of Kentish men, unhappy with their king. And, as the book ends, basically, the announcement of Richard as the Lord Protector of the realm is also a stormbird - of the storm that will escalate into the most brutal and devastating clash of family members history had ever seen.

So it was a good book, but I'm hoping book two can be better. And wondering when book three is coming out? Any information?

xx

*image not mine