Following Elizabeth Woodville's, then Margaret Beaufort's stories in 'The White Queen' and 'The Red Queen', 'The Kingmaker's Daughter' tells the story of the Cousins War from Anne Neville's point of view (the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, daughter in law to Margaret of Anjou (the bad queen), then wife to Richard of York). Which must have presented Philippa Gregory with quite a problem - how to retell a story around events she has already described in previous books and make it fresh.
She not only solves this problem but masters it. I've read the other books in the series so far, as well as others set at the same time, so am pretty familiar with the events, but this book doesn't rely on the retelling of these events, only on one person's point of view of them.
It is gripping, fascinating, wholly plausible, and for the most part impeccably researched (although I was disappointed to find a fifteenth century ship steered by a wheel rather than a whipstaff). The historical detail is not overdone, but the detail used with great insight eg: 'when I was a little girl I thought his chest was made of metal, because I always saw him in armour.'

After empathising with Elizabeth Woodville in 'The White Queen', then Margaret Beaufort in 'The Red Queen', I again turned my coat and was fully behind Anne Neville and Richard of York, despite the way history records them - I'm disappointed in myself, I'm not normally so fickle, though am fully prepared to turn it again when Philippa Gregory returns with 'The White Princess'!


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