Kingmaker – Toby Clements

Kingmaker - Toby Clements
Kingmaker – Toby Clements

Last in Toby Clements’ Kingdom Come Wars of the Roses quartet.

A bit of a let down. Perhaps too long had lapsed since I’d read the previous instalments.

Everything gets wrapped up, but in ways which felt disconnected the the rest of the story, even though the author’s note flags a key connection in a preceding book.

Publisher page: Kingmaker – Toby Clements

Kingmaker: Divided Souls – Toby Clements

Kingmaker: Divided Souls - Toby Clements
Kingmaker: Divided Souls – Toby Clements

1469, and Thomas and Katherine’s settled family life on the Fakenham Estate is turned topsy turvy alongside one of the Wars of the Roses‘ periodic political upheavals as Warwick “the Kingmaker” decides he likes the power of controlling the King (of being the King?) far more than he likes King Edward’s new in laws….

Yes, it’s the famous Elizabeth Woodville and the equally infamous Woodville clan. Not that we meet any of them in the third in Toby Clements’ Kingmaker Quartet…. but there’s plenty of plot here to keep us entertained!

Publisher page: Kingmaker: Divided Souls – Toby Clements

Kingmaker: Broken Faith – Toby Clements

Kingmaker: Broken Faith - Toby Clements
Kingmaker: Broken Faith – Toby Clements

Back to the Wars of the Roses, in the second of Toby Clements’ Kingmaker Quartet. I’d bought books 2 and 3 in Frinton ages ago, and had kept them to take to LA on March’s now “deferred” work trip. I reckoned I’d need something to keep my spirits up, and myself entertained during evenings on my own.

Anyway, COVID-19 put paid to that trip, and so I decided NOW was the time to read them in Heavenly Herefordshire. We’re not a million miles from Mortimer’s Cross.

Enjoyable as ever, and I’ve just started the next one… but – oh woe – I don’t have the final book* yet. Keeping my eye on AbeBooks for an inexpensive second hand copy….

Publisher page: Kingmaker: Broken Faith – Toby Clements

* Well, I think it is…

Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims – Toby Clements

Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims - Toby Clements
Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims – Toby Clements

The first in a four part series set in the Wars of the Roses starts with a young canon and nun fleeing their Lincolnshire Priory in the hard winter of 1460. They soon take on new identities to escape charges of apostasy.

Jean borrowed my Frinton purchase when she and dad stayed in the summer and thoroughly enjoyed it. So, spotting a copy in my pre-Christmas whizz around Barbican library, it was an easy choice. A good one too – and not simply because it turned out I’d read the other three novels I picked up!

Plenty of adventure as Thomas and Kit find themselves travelling around the country, and across the Channel, on boats, horses and foot.

I particularly enjoyed the Welsh section, and the chapter spent in Hereford, when the Chained Library gets a mention.

Handily I have the next two – further Frinton purchases – at home. Less handily I’ve already promised to let Jean have them when we get to 40A in January. She’s been waiting patiently to find out what happens after the Battle of Towton….

The only disappointment was discovering that the author is/was a literary critic at The Telegraph. No wonder there’s such a glowing review from them on the front cover…. It’s not what you know, eh?

Publisher page: Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims – Toby Clements