![]() ![]() I've thoroughly enjoyed the trilogy and although you don't have to read the previous two to enjoy The Stone Rose I highly recommend you read all three. ![]() This is certainly a book that absorbs you, one you will not want to out down and will be sad when you reach the end. McGrath writes beautifully and manages to give the reader the experience of travelling back in time to the Royal Court to meet characters such as Hugh Despenser, Roger Mortimer and of course Isabella and her ladies. This book will transport you back to the Fourteenth Century, where famine, banquets and war all featured. She breathed in the scent on mown hay, enjoying the sound of sheep in the meadows, bleating to be shorn, and the crash of water turning the wheels of the mills. This year, fields were filled with barley waving in the breeze, waiting for the reapers' blades and every day the sun shone from a sky the shade of cornflowers. Colourful wild flowers decorated the hedgregrows. Lanes and meadows lay out before them like a tapestry as they nosed their mounts south towards the town of Northampton. Much happened during Isabella's time as queen and McGrath's depiction weaves fact with fiction to create a intriguing, beautiful story filled with detailed descriptives of the court and country. McGrath brings Isabella to life as a strong, independent queen striving to protect her children, crown and those she loves. ![]() As a young queen she cannot understand why barons wish to curb their spending and the influence of others but as she matures Isabella begins to understand, especially when Hugh Despenser the younger becomes the only voice her husband will hear. Isabella begins her reign blissfully unaware of her husbands favouritism towards specific courtiers but soon begins to notice the influence of Piers Gaveston. On her journey she hears Isabella's story from Master Gregory who was once a page in the queen's household. Agnes finds herself requested to visit the now Dowager Queen for the commission of her tomb. McGrath tells the story from two points of view, Agnes, the daughter of a stonemason who has inherited her fathers workshop and Isabella herself. The Stone Rose centres on Isabella, Queen of England, wife of Edward II and the turbulent events occurring in England in the Fourteenth Century. Having read the previous instalments in the She-Wolves Trilogy I couldn't wait to read the final book. ![]()
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