Cecily by Annie Garthwaite
You are born high, but marry a traitor’s son. You bear him twelve children, carry his cause and bury his past. You play the game, against enemies who wish you ashes. Slowly, you rise. You are Cecily. But when the king who governs you proves unfit, what then? Loyalty or treason – death may follow both. The board is set. Time to make your first move.
I’ve always loved historical fiction, but it’s been a while since I returned to the period I love the most – the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors. So the release of this new book seemed like the perfect chance to step back to this fascinating time. And what a book to do it with.
Cecily is a fascinating portrayal of an incredible woman – a wife, mother, politician, strategist, and queen in all but name. While many books have been written about the Wars of the Roses from the male perspective, women are often relegated to the background. But here, Cecily takes centre stage. Working quietly and diligently to determine the course of events, using her astounding intelligence and political know-how, she strives to gain power for herself and her family. And while she doesn’t always succeed, she always comes back stronger.
Garthwaite delves deep into her protagonist’s psyche, creating a detailed portrait of an unsentimental, power-hungry, ruthless woman – but also a woman whose love for her children transcends all else, and who knows when shrewdness is more important than pride.
The writing had a different style to other historical fiction novels about famous women, with its blunt descriptions, keen psychological insights and examinations of the violent machinations of power. It reads like a real-life Game of Thrones, taking you away from the battlefields and into the dimly-lit rooms and shadowy corridors where real power is lost and won.
There are no clear-cut heroes and villains here. Everyone is shown to be capable of terrible things in the pursuit of what they want, just as everyone is shown to be capable of small acts of kindness and mercy. It’s a brutal, bloody, cut-throat world, peopled by those hungry and desperate enough for power, to make choices that will change the course of history.
Cecily is an incredible protagonist and, though the pace in the middle of the book is quite slow, the heart-pounding finale more than makes up for it.
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