Review: Traitor's Wife by Susan Higgenbottom

My favorite literary genre has to be historical fiction.  Let me amend that.  Has to be well-written historical fiction.  Confession: I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to historical fiction.  I don't like it if it's too unbelievable.  I don't mind literary fiction when the author has taken liberties interpreting the characters thoughts and emotions; I have issues when the author throws in a completely unbelievable affair or battle scene or murder when all historical evidence points to its impossibility.  However, writing historical fiction "by the book" as it may be can result in some very dry novels.  Even I have to admit this, and I'm a huge believer in "real history is better and more fantastic than any fiction writer could dream up".

Traitor's Wife is the story of Eleanor le Despenser, little more than a footnote in history as the wife of Hugh le Despenser, a nobody who was ambitious enough to fight his way through those born more nobly than he and eventually become the confidante of England's King Edward II.  I'm always interested to read novels about real historical figures about whom little is known, and this is the case with Eleanor.  She is not well-known, but largely overshadowed by her notorious husband Hugh.  This is a period of history which, I confess, I am not well-versed in (English royal history is my passion, but I'm definitely better-read when it comes to the Renaissance and the Tudors than I am about medieval English history), and I have to say that, after reading Traitor's Wife, I am itching to learn more about that era.

Traitor's Wife is not without fault.  The first half of it is a little dry, and somewhat monotonous (Higgenbottom insists on leading the reader through all of the births of Eleanor and Hugh's many children, as well as Hugh's somewhat dry plans to amass more and more English estates for himself).  I can't really fault Higgenbottom for wanting to include every bit of research she did; she's extremely thorough in her work, which I can appreciate.  She bases a majority of her novel on royal scandal/speculation/rumor, which (in the case of Edward II and his notorious homosexuality) has become the stuff of legend, and is more or less widely-accepted.  Though I must say, there are some scenes that were so unbelievable I felt that my eyes were going to roll right out of my head.

Overall, I would recommend Traitor's Wife to anyone who is a fan of (extremely thorough) historical fiction and English royal history.  I am not sure if I would read it again, because it is very long for a book that I wasn't crazy about.  Still, I'm glad I read it, and it kicked off my 100 in 2011 very nicely.

Rating: *** and 1/2

I find myself really hankering for some hardcore history books, after reading this.  Because of its subject matter, I'm now dying to pick up Alison Weir's Queen Isabella -- a book I've been really neglecting because I had no idea who Queen Isabella was and what her impact was on history.  Unfortunately, it's not one I have on my bookshelf right now (and as a die-hard fan of Weir, I have most of her books already!).  But it will be on my to-read list for this year!

Up next: Sweetie by Kathryn Magendie.  This is one that I picked up from Amazon.com (for free, although it isn't anymore), and it's not normally a book that I would pick up.  However, I started it this morning and it's such a quick read!  I'm already at Chapter 5, and I have a feeling that this is going to be finished pretty quickly.

One down, ninety-nine left to go!