Wars of the Roses: Trinity: Book 2

One better than the first part - the characters are more personal....each one's perspective is valid, with no clear villains or heroes. An outstanding piece of work, bringing history to life in all its glaring shades and hues.

As another reviewer has said, this feels like a more mature and considered book than the first in the series, Stormbird. I like Trinity enormously. The scale and scope of the Wars of the Roses, is a huge challenge to a fiction writer and Conn Iggulden has nailed it as far as I am concerned. To humanise, fictionalise and indeed empathise with these long dead people given their apparently insane and unquenchable thirst for power is no mean feat. At the heart of the matter is the weak, mentally unstable King Henry VI, who is sadly not the man his powerful father Henry V was in any respect. He has long periods of catatonia and in the power vacuum created during these months, vicious feuding and struggles for control of the country and the infant Prince of Wales take place. When Henry emerges from one his long fits, he is amazed to find that he has an heir, is determined to wrest royal power back from the Lord Protector and equally determined to reinstate loyal men who have been imprisoned against his wishes. His unpopular French wife, Margaret of Anjou, has to try to stay one step ahead, to protect both her husband and her baby son, in a society which sees women, even royal women, as not suited to power. In this she is assisted by a master spy, an interesting character called Derry Brewer and his presence is an excellent device for moving events forward. Yorkist fights Lancastrian and the sands shift endlessly as the great lords, Percy, Neville, Warwick etc struggle for power and control of the King and the country, and, as a bonus, settle old scores. Iggulden has brought it all brilliantly to life, and his battle scenes are superbly written: I had never fully realised the brutal challenge of fighting in full armour and how the body must have ached when the adrenalin faded and the wounds and bruises kicked in. We are taken up to the decisive point where the three "Suns of York" emerge triumphant, the world begins anew with Edward Earl of March, and the power games begin again. The next book will be worth waiting for! It's superb stuff from a writer quite simply at the top of his game. Highly recommended.

The author presents a complex period in English royal history with insight and enthusiasm. As with the other volumes in the series I found it hard to put down. I am looking forward to the remainder of the series.

Really good read.

Yet again a fabulous book. I can't wait to read the next! History and story all in one and so well written that I couldn't put it down.