Every time I try to conjure up some adjectives for Margaret Beaufort by Lauren Johnson, I keep feeling like I am damning it with faint praise. It is workmanlike, competent, and perfectly told. Does that sound like an exceptional book? I hope so, because it is! Luckily, Johnson is way better at writing than I am.
For the uninitiated, Margaret Beaufort is the matriarch who would usher in the Tudor dynasty. Yeah, the one that the murderous rascal Henry VIII was part of. This means Beaufort needed to somehow survive the absolute chaos that was the Wars of the Roses where lots of British people in one family wanted to kill a lot of other British people in another family even though everyone was basically related. Sounds confusing? Not the way Johnson tells it!
Johnson makes this a smooth read even while having to explain who everyone was to everyone else while many of them kept using the same damn first names. This is a herculean task for any author, but I’m not sure I can name many who do a better job than this author with her subject. Most importantly, Johnson never tries to make Beaufort all sinner or saint. She was cunning, cold, and cruel when necessary, but with her eyes always focused on the survival of her family. Who wouldn’t do what they needed to do under the circumstances? History would bear out that, if nothing, she was one of the most effective political animals of her time.
Again, it seems simple, but Johnson makes the complicated and confusing into a book that reads like a novel and gives you everything you need without any fluff. That’s one heck of a book.
(This book was provided as a review copy by Pegasus Books.)
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