Book Review: My Lady Anne by Gordon Thorburn
My Lady Anne by Gordon Thorburn
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 13th May 2016
Format: Ebook
Pages: 176
ISBN: 978-1534729216
Synopsis:
The Lady Margaret Russell, Countess of Cumberland, is woman ahead of her time.
When she learns that her husband’s property will revert to his brother upon her death, leaving her daughter with nothing, she hires lawyers to change this.
And this is simply not done in England in the early 1600s.
Margaret’s daughter, Anne, is old enough to see that her beloved mother is a force to be reckoned with, and even though the process is slow, Anne finds herself with lands and homes and money.
After all her mother went through to secure her inheritance, Anne finds herself married to an Earl who likes to gamble, although he is very bad at it.
When his debts accumulate, he asks for access to her land and money, and when Anne refuses to sign them over, he leaves, taking Anne’s beloved daughter, Margaret, named for her own mother, with him.
But Anne is not one to give up, not even when family friends turn against her, and the king himself becomes involved.
Set during the time of Shakespeare, The Gunpowder Plot, the execution of King Charles and the rise of Cromwell, Lady Anne’s life, dutifully recorded by her faithful servant Samuel, shows a world in change through the eyes of a strong, capable and loyal woman.
My Thoughts:
Firstly thank you to NetGalley and to Endeavour Press for approving me and allowing me to read and review this book.
Well, where to start? Lady Anne has quite an in depth story and a long one spanning 86 years. She was in court during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and died during the time of King Charles II. I do feel that her story could have been told a bit more in depth. But I didn't like the way the story was told either. It has been told in a kind of diary format, but I never knew where the diary ended, and the narrator started again.
I loved Anne and her stubbornness, even when a King got involved in her affairs with her husband, she was still stubborn. Her stubbornness and patience won out in the end. Anne married twice and had 2 daughters. She did also give birth to 5 sons but all 5 died. She certainly had a tough time with her 2 husbands although she loved both fiercely.
In all this was a good book, even though I did have a tough time trying to keep up and also trying to figure out the end of a diary entry and the start of the narrators entry (I got rather confused, truth be told). I'm going to give this book a 3/5 rating because of the way it has been written and the fact I got confused.
