Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune is the first in a series, The Tarnished Crown, set during the Wars of the Roses. If you are expecting something like Game of Thrones you will be disappointed, or perhaps relieved. There is a violent episode in Chapter 1 and an affray on a Lincolnshire moor in the last chapter, but otherwise the story unfolds in gardens, children’s nurseries and bedrooms. The 16-year-old heroine, Isobel, is successively an amateur gardener, a nursemaid, and finally the earl’s (reluctant) mistress, reminding us that the Wars of the Roses was mostly a time of intermittent low-level violence broken occasionally by episodes of open war.
Dunn is anxious to explain that the combatants were motivated principally by loyalty to their families and their lords, not by selfish greed. She has steeped herself in the late Middle Ages and understands its psyche.
This is a very atmospheric book with convincing characters and setting, but to my taste there is too much time spent on quarrels between child minders and marital bickering, and I needed the Author’s Note to understand the politics. However, if you prefer the story of a young woman forced into an unwelcome relationship at a time of chronic insecurity, then I am sure you will enjoy this.
