Hooked on Books

Wow what a fascinating story! It's hard enough for me to keep up with all of the Presidents of the United States much less all of the Dukes and Duchesses, Earls, Viscounts and all of the other royals that graced the peerage of England and other countries through the years so I honestly wasn't familiar with Eleanor Cobham's story going into this. What little I did know about her came from the couple minutes of Wikipedia and Internet research I did before reading. Basically the story itself is about Eleanor's life and rise to Duchess of Gloucester and then her subsequent fall from grace following accusations of sorcery, witchcraft and necromancy which she was convicted of and then imprisoned for life. The story is told in first person, through Eleanor's eyes in the form of a secret diary that she has written while imprisoned. Her life story and rise to Duchess is alternately told in parallel along side her current daily struggles with prison life. I normally don't like to read books that have two parallel storylines because I always seemed to end up totally confused but I thought the author, Tony Riches, did a fabulous job with it. He writes really well and once you realize how the story is alternating, then its smooth sailing throughout. The author also does an exceptional job of keeping you in suspense so it doesn't feel like your reading a dull history lesson. It feels more like your reading a suspense novel. I was enthralled the entire time wondering what was going to happen to Eleanor next. He also does a great job of developing Eleanor's character so that you really sympathize with her and her predicament. Anyone interested in historical fiction and 15th century England I think would immensely enjoy this story.

*I won this ARC from Booklikes in exchange for an honest review.