Cecily: An epic feminist retelling of the War of the Roses

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An extraordinary achievement . . .I could touch and breathe Cecily's world as if I was walking in her shadow' CAROL MCGRATH, author of The Silken Rose Consider these thoughts, on the artistic debt she owes to her novelist mother. “My painting is really close to my mum’s writing. The very visual nature of her writing, its surreal nature, had a big influence on me.”

Image: Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, and her six daughters, from the Neville Book of Hours. Cecily is wearing a golden gown, with green patterns. ( Source and another) While Richard is released without Cecily’s intervention, the next few years sees open warfare break out between Lancaster and York. As the the royal army is about to descend on York’s stronghold of Ludlow. It is Cecily who tells a reluctant Richard and their sons that they must flee. Again, it is Cecily who points out the obvious that both of York’s heirs must not stay with Richard. The choice of which one must be hers. “She thinks of her brother outwitting the queen’s army not a month ago at Blore Heath, first to enter the streets at St. Albans, holding the North and always winning. She looks from him to Richard, and knows. She clenches her fists against her sons’ leather gambesons and pushes them both away. ‘Edward, go with your uncle.’” (Really—poor Richard as a completely witless failure? Splitting up Richard and his immediate heir is surely the obvious move.) The youngest of the D'Aplièse sisters, Electra, known for her fiery temper, has always been outspoken and a rebel. Now one of the world's most successful supermodels, she is living in New York, away from her sisters, and is struggling to cope with both the death of Pa Salt and the break up of a relationship. Turning further to drugs and alcohol, she then, she receives a mysterious letter from a woman claiming to be her biological grandmother and her life takes an unexpected turn… It started in school if I’m honest, with a history teacher that kept asking me questions that, frankly, weren’t ever on the syllabus. Important questions like, ‘So why do you think she did that?’ or ‘What might have been in her mind when…?’ Or the big one: ‘But, do you think that’s true?’ My final exam mark wasn’t that impressive. I was a bit woolly on dates and politics, but very strong on character motivation. The cookie is set by CasaleMedia. The cookie is used to collect information about the usage behavior for targeted advertising.Shines a light into a dark corner of our history and reclaims the voice and story of a powerful and forgotten woman' LIZ HYDER, author of The Gifts

The format of this book alternates between a diary during 2020 and 2021, and Cecily sharing memories of Owen and of her own life. It often gave stream of consciousness vibes which doesn’t always work for me as a reader, but I think worked well here given the time and circumstances and that this is nonfiction, rather than fiction, which is where I usually struggle with this style. I have no confirmation, but expect this was cathartic for Cecily to write. In the Afterword Annie Garthwaite tells us how she became interested in history and on the type of history that interested her. It was all thanks to one of her schoolteachers who insisted on the importance of considering that the actors in history were people with emotions and individual minds, and that when considering past events, it was crucial to try and understand the motivation behind the actions of these notorious doers. In sum, one had to try and bring them to life. This domain of this cookie is owned by agkn. The cookie is used for targeting and advertising purposes. This book was good. Enjoyable and entertaining, a solid 3.5 stars. In short, a very well-researched and gripping account of Cecily's life, but one that I just wanted more from.I have always had a fondness for English history, the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses. And I have long felt that Cecily Neville was a sort of shadowy figure, a woman always on the fringes of the story but never at the center. I longed for her to have her voice, to hear her story. To have her be the center of attention. Garthwaite did her proud. More contemplative passages immerse the reader in the hardships, and sometimes joyful simplicities, of the period. Annie Garthwaite writes about the past with the sort of intimacy, immediacy and empathy that can only come from graft and craft' TOBY CLEMENTS, author of Kingmaker Scope: When I first started out with this story, I expected the main focus to be on the later period of Cecily's life - when she is the mother of two kings and grandmother of a third. But I was actually pleasantly surprised to find out that Garthwaite had chosen to focus solely on the period in Cecily's life before she was raised so high in the world. Here, we get the story of the end War of the Roses as seen through the eyes of one women who was probably closest to the action - and perhaps a greater part of it than anyone of us will ever know.

And then there’s the characterisations. They’re complex, they’re nuanced, the characters are allowed to be grey rather than rigidly good or bad – a common problem in a lot of woman-centric historical fiction set in this era. Cecily herself is massively flawed, snobby, a bit nasty and judgemental. This is “Proud Cis” alright. A thirty-year international business career made me even more interested in women’s relationship with power. You can imagine. Let’s just say, I frequently found myself the only woman at the big table. This book focuses on how instrumental Cecily was in manoeuvring her family and made connections, to put her family in a place of power, and eventually own the crown.I knew that my ‘gift' of beauty had helped to bring about the most painful moment of my life, simply because I was too naive at the time to understand the power it wielded. So now, I hid it away, which meant hiding myself.' This was a time when the sons and daughters of noble houses were married in childhood in pursuit of dynastic alliances, although such marriages may not be consummated until some years later. Indeed, Cecily was only nine years old herself when she was joined in marriage with Richard Plantagenet. Cecily Strong is well known from her time on Saturday Night Live (and now on Schmigadoon!) - she also experienced quite a bit of loss in 2020, her cousin friend Owen but also other people close to her, much less the shutdown of a city and then the world that we all experienced. I will always recommend grief memoirs to people who have experienced grief because the number one thing they accomplish is to help you feel you aren't alone. Cecily wrote this like a diary (unclear if they started that way) so the posts vary in tone and focus, just like life. She has some days where anxiety is the focus and others where she reflects on something happening in the world politically or even in pop culture, but others where she is writing about her cousin, Covid, isolation, etc.