Figures in Silk: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a time machine that whooshes you back to fifteenth-century England to provide an insider's access to the mysterious events that still surround the 1485 usurpation of Richard III. Novelists have the advantage over historians when it comes to explaining the many contradictory decisions Richard made, as they are able to create fictional characters to narrate those events about which the actual historical record is silent. Enter novelist Vanora Bennett who has created a very believable character in Isabel Claver, a silk woman of the London mercery, through whose eyes the story is told. Lover of Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III), daughter of a London guildsman who supported the Yorkist cause, sister of Jane Shore (mistress of Edward IV and then of other nobles), and dressmaker to the Princess Elizabeth, Isabel is uniquely positioned to know the secrets of various characters in the real-life drama that was Yorkist and Lancastrian England. Bennett's research for the story is solid. Though Isabel Claver is a fictional character, she is based on a number of actual women in the London silk trade who went by the name of Isabel. Other figures who appear in the story were actual persons, including Alice Claver, silk trader and mother-in-law of the imaginary Isabel; Thomas Lynom, King's solicitor and eventual husband of the shamed Jane Shore; and Will Caxton, who established the first printing press in London. It is just plain fun to see Caxton in the role of Isabel's friend and confidante. The many threads of the Ricardian story hang together believably in this novel, while holding the reader's interest in the aspirations of the women of the London silk trade as well. Bennett also creates a mood in the novel that hangs with you even when you aren't reading the book, creating that little tug that keeps pulling you back to it. I found it hard to put down. For high school students who catch the Wars of the Roses bug, this book would certainly be a pleasurable way of getting to know the many figures in the saga, but parents and teachers should know in advance that descriptions of sexual liaisons are included in the book, though not lurid. With that caveat, I can conclude by heartily endorsing this book as one that will give you the you-are-there experience we so enjoy in the genre of historical fiction.

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