Her Highness, the Traitor

This should've been an interesting book. Two women who are basically ignored by historic fiction, one of them unfairly maligned as an evil domestic abuser, sharing the narrative before, during, and after their respective families' mutual downfalls.

But something about it just fell flat for me. I could never tell who was narrating just based on “voice”, I would usually have to turn back to double check if it was Frances or Jane narrating. At the end I didn't feel like I really KNEW either woman.

I do always appreciate historic fiction authors who make an effort to consult contemporary sources to get to the bottom of what people were like, as Higginbotham explains in her detailed author's note - for instance, while Frances has historically been portrayed as a cruel mother who abused her daughter Jane, including beating her into submission to agree to marry Guildford, Higginbotham explains that the oldest source for that portrayal dates from years after the source met Jane, and years after she was dead and had become something of a martyr.

I just can't properly explain how hard it was for me to keep up with who was talking. Everybody sounded the same, and the author makes the choice to mostly use people's titles rather than names, so trying to keep up with who Suffolk or Somerset or Northampton or Norfolk were, and never being sure when it said something like “Jane Doe, the Marchioness of wherever, and the Countess of someplace” if that was one, two, or three people.

The narrative did make sense. I have no desire to read this book again, but I think other enjoyers of historical fiction especially featuring under-represented women might enjoy it more than I did.