You Review: The People’s Queen by Vanora Bennett

Reviewed by Natalie Gerritsen

The People’s Queen by Vanora Bennett takes us to England in the fourteenth century. There, we meet Alice Perrers, a woman who climbed from poverty to being the King’s mistress and having a very powerful position at court. Her life is filled with plotting and scheming, but soon she gets overconfident, and even though her friend Geoffrey Chaucer tries to warn and save her, things start to unravel fast for her.

Through the eyes of Alice and Chaucer we see all the important historical events of the fourteenth century, such as the plague, the rise of the hedge preachers, the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 and the general political situation in England. Bennett expects the reader to have a basic knowledge of those times, and doesn’t explain too much about those events, which I love about the book. It takes the reader seriously and keeps the story going.

The central theme of the book is the wheel of Fortune. You can reach the top, but you must inevitably go down again, and only when you hit the bottom, there’s a chance of going up again. This wheel is often on the characters’ minds and gives a suspenseful sense of doom to the entire story.

The People’s Queen is beautifully written, with great characters, a good story and the right balance between fact and fiction.

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