"Murder Most Royal" by Jean Plaidy (1949)

I wonder why it took me so long to discover Jean Plaidy - after all, she is exactly the type of historical fiction that I used to love when growing up. I was a little boy besotted with the books about the historical characters, their glamorous lives and unhappy secrets - back than, I made no distinction between the classic historic biographies like Stefan Zweig or popular works by James Michener. Later I have discovered books by Antonia Fraser, Alison Weir and Philipa Gregory, but Jean Plaidy precedes all of them, in fact she might have been the biggest star of historical fiction for decades and what is specially interesting about her is that this lady (born Eleanor Alice Burford - we share the same birthday!) worked under different pseudonyms according to different genres. 

As Eleanor Burford she wrote many romance novels. As Jean Plaidy she created a best-selling historic sagas, including those about Tudors, Stuarts, Catherine De Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, etc. As Victoria Holt she created sensation in US with her gothic romance novels. As Philippa Carr she won completely new audience with multi-generational family sagas. Add a several more pseudonyms that she used occasionally and you get a extremely successful and busy writer whose work covers several decades and she definitely deserves to be at least checked out. I honestly have no idea why I waited until now, perhaps it was simply the look of all those inexpensive paperbacks with her name & I previously assumed it would be old fashioned & silly. After all, she started back in the 1940s so I thought it would be worn out and moth eaten. And just the design of all these paperbacks suggested silly novels for the schoolgirls. Well, I could not been more mistaken. 

I had to start somewhere, so I decided to start with "Murder Most Royal" simply because chronologically it was one of her first really big successes under the pseudonym Jean Plaidy and perhaps it might be the moment when she genuinely found her writing voice - even though there are almost dozen single novels written before this - this was THE moment when Burford allowed her interest in history to inspire her to write a true historical fiction. Initially, I was extremely sceptical, expecting dry prose and lots of romance - it did not help that Philipa Gregory already created best-selling "The Other Boleyn Girl" so I was kind of familiar with the story - but after few chapters I could not resists anymore and I started really enjoying the novel. Plaidy has great imagination, obvious love for history and good research background + even though the novel was published in 1949. there is absolutely nothing old-fashioned about it. In fact, if one does not know the publishing date, it could have been written yesterday. I am now at the point where public opinion goes dangerously against Anne Boleyn and she was almost attacked by angry mob during one of her evening rides in a barge. People obviously feel sympathy for worn-out and pious Catherine of Aragon who was an official queen for more than two decades prior, where Boleyn is perceived as young and ambitious (and not very virtuous) upstart. I am totally sold on Jean Plaidy.