Unfinished

When I start a book, I usually commit to finishing it. It takes a lot to make me put down a book unfinished. Usually I like the book enough to want to know how it ends, even if I'm not enthralled by it. Not every book is amazing - some are merely good or even okay, but I will still usually finish the book. Usually.

The most recent book I tried to read I couldn't. I just could not finish it and had to put it down and probably won't read any further books in the series. Which book is this that sparked my wrath? It is book 2 of the Morland Dynasty series, The Dark Rose, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.

Now, I had earlier expressed my reservations with Ms. Harrod-Eagles in my previous post about the first book in the series; The Founding. But I was willing to give her books another chance. But after getting part of the way through The Dark Rose I just had to put it down and walk away. There are two reasons why I had to put the book down: I will discuss them now. Also, I'm not pulling any punches here - I will discuss the book so if anyone does want to read it you may want to stop reading this post now.

First, and this is probably minor, but annoying all the same. The Dark Rose takes place during the reign of Henry VIII, so of course all the families of the wives are involved. (And, indeed, it is kind of neat to meet a number of the wives pre-Henry: especially Katherine Parr and Anne Boleyn - we know what's going to happen, but they, poor ladies, don't, of course.) The Morland family is becoming friends with the Boleyn family. Harrod-Eagles has a character comment on the death of Thomas Boleyn's wife (father of Anne) and express sadness at his resulting second marriage to a woman of low class. And not only once - but twice.

The problem with this comment? It is simply not true. Thomas Boleyn was only married once, and that to Elizabeth Howard, mother of his three children (who lived to adulthood): Mary, Anne, and George. Elizabeth actually outlived both Anne and George, dying a few years after their execution. I checked and double checked this fact in my two books about Anne Boleyn and Wikipedia. Nowhere, anywhere was there any kind of fact that said that Thomas Boleyn's wife had died relatively young and that he had married again. I have no idea what sources Harrod-Eagles is using here, but they are clearly incorrect! And why make such a silly and inconsequential historical mistake? Maybe this becomes an important plot point later in the novel - I don't know. But if it's not an important plot point, why have this clearly wrong fact mentioned twice?

I must say I'm a little suspicious of Harrod-Eagles' research abilities in general. I had a look at her website and her writing output is staggering. In addition to the Morland series, she's written a number of other historical fiction books, general fiction books, and mysteries. She must average a book a year - so I'm not sure how she has time to do all the research and write the novel. Maybe she is just exceptionally quick at writing and researching. But her books don't have that lived-in feeling of a Sharon Kay Penman novel - where you can tell the author did so much research that she probably felt she was living in that time period when she wrote the book!

My second problem with the book concerns a plot point in Chapter 9, about one third of the way through the book. Again, if you want to read this book yourself, don't read this blog any further! Nanette Morland is one of the vast Morland family. She is at court as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine (of Aragon: wife #1 for those of you keeping track at home). There is a great celebration and tournament and Nanette is visited by her half-uncle Paul Morland. (Paul and Nanette's father Jack are half-brothers; Paul and Jack are great-grandsons of the Eleanor in the first novel.) Paul hated his wife and had a mistress, but recently both have died. Before Nanette went to court, the author hinted at romantic tension between the two and they kissed. I was unsure at this point, but continued to read on, sure in my belief that the author would not bring these two characters together.

Well, I was wrong. Nanette and Paul rendezvous in the gardens after the tournament and sleep together. Yes, Nanette had sex with her uncle Paul. A niece and an uncle sleep together. And then talk of marriage and getting some sort of dispensation from the Pope. Really? Really. I do not want to read of incest, thank you very much Ms. Harrod-Eagles. Is the big romantic relationship of the book between a niece and uncle? That is just disgusting and I don't want to read about it. (See also the terrible Philippa Gregory novel Wideacre, which I also couldn't finish - although that was slightly worse being incest between a brother and sister.) I do understand that uncle-niece marriages did happen - but that was in the Habsburg family of Austria and Spain, and we all know what happened to them. (The Spanish branch was so inbred that eventually the last Habsburg king of Spain was a blithering and infertile idiot, died with no heirs, and brought about the War of the Spanish Succession.) But I don't think that uncle-niece marriages were common among the aristocracy/grand families of England, ever. Cousin marriage was very common among both royals and non-royals, but not uncle-niece marriage. Not in England.

At that point I just had to put the book down. I was not interested in reading further about Nanette and Paul's romantic struggles. It was really enough to turn me off of the whole series. Interestingly enough, I've read a few other online reviews of The Dark Rose and no reviews really mention the whole incest aspect or criticize it in any way. So, maybe it's just me, but I'm not really interested in reading a book that uses incest as a pivotal plot point and relationship between two major characters. My skin would crawl every time she mentioned Paul and Nanette. I've put the book down, unfinished, and I will not be reading any further books by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.

What do you think, faithful readers? Is incest enough to make you put down a book? Have I overreacted? Fortunately for me I am not a huge Cynthia Harrod-Eagles fan, so I don't think I'll be missing much by not reading the rest of her series. Life is short: why read books you're not interested in. Less time with Cynthia Harrod-Eagles means more time with writers I truly adore, like Sharon Kay Penman and Judith Merkle Riley.