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If you enjoyed Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, as I did, you will probably be attracted to her new departure – a series of novels about an earlier historical period. The White Queen was Elizabeth Woodville, the young Lancastrian widow who became the wife of Edward IV of York.

History regards the marriage as Edward’s mistake, rousing, as it did, the anger and rivalry of most of the noble families of England and Europe. However, the story is told from the point of view of the beautiful young wife, the mother of the famed ‘Princes in the Tower’ and mother of a future Queen of England.

Tied into the story is the legend of Melusina and a strong dose of witchcraft – actively indulged in by the white queen’s mother, but most striking is the historical scholarship of Philippa Gregory.

In this new series, it is through the women that Philippa Gregory is re-examining the Wars of the Roses. We meet the wife of one king, the bitter enemy of the next king, the regent, Richard of Gloucester who must destroy her sons in order to gain the throne, and the daughter whose father is executed by Warwick ‘the king maker’. This is history presented in a new and different way.

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