![]() ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, this long-anticipated novel lacks animation. She would seem the ideal author to turn these outsized players in a royal drama into real people. In her five previous historical novels, Penman has exhibited a cool, almost academic style balanced by a penetrating sympathy, her fiction adhering faithfully to fact while making the past fully present. The resulting conflict will climax in Becket's murder. Becket, however, becomes an adamant protector of ecclesiastical power. When he makes his chancellor archbishop of Canterbury, Henry believes he is creating an indomitable union of church and state. Diplomatic and suave, Becket is the perfect complement for a rough-hewn young king. His only other trusted adviser is Thomas Becket. Henry II is a confident leader, but he is also wise enough to appreciate his politically astute wife. This book, the second of a planned trilogy, begins after Henry II has inherited the crown and married Eleanor of Aquitaine-a mature beauty and a wealthy ruler in her own right. ![]() Was Penman's popular account of the 12th-century struggle for England's throne. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |