REVIEW: Blood Royal by Diana Norman

I really enjoyed Blood Royal by Diana Nor­man. It ranks right up there with The Vizard Mask as another bril­liant read. The story fol­lows Lady Cecily Fitzhenry, whose life changes dra­mat­i­cally after an ill-fated deci­sion that leaves her pen­ni­less and with­out any polit­i­cal con­nec­tions or prospects.

Cecily Fitzhenry, mar­ried against her wishes, finds that her hus­band has invested and lost her for­tune in the South Sea bub­ble. The only prop­erty left to her is a crum­bling inn, which she turns to run­ning with a mot­ley col­lec­tion of sup­port, many of whom run foul of the new laws.

The story opens with the Pre­tender, James Stu­art, secretly plan­ning another inva­sion into Eng­land. Mean­while, his fol­low­ers from a pre­vi­ous failed attempt to take over the crown have been tried for trea­son and sent to prison or worse: fac­ing death and are about to hang for it. How­ever, the Jacobite’s are resilient and secretly re-organize them­selves and are plan­ning another attempt to take over the crown.

Lady Cecily Fitzhenry is torn because a few of her fam­ily mem­bers are Jaco­bite sym­pa­thiz­ers. A dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion con­sid­er­ing her con­nec­tions to the royal fam­ily. Lady Cecily has Jaco­bite sym­pa­thies but tries her best to dis­tant her­self from them. Unfor­tu­nately, she is a reluc­tant par­tic­i­pant in a scheme to help a Jaco­bite uncle of hers escape from prison, only to be caught later. Need­less to say, the King is embar­rassed by the inci­dent and allows his prime min­is­ter, Robert Wal­pole to mete out jus­tice. Quickly, Lady Cecily is mar­ried off against her wishes to a com­moner. Pun­ish­ment indeed for Lady Cecily as she is the laugh­ing stock of many of her peers. Thus, she makes the best of the sit­u­a­tion until things get pro­gres­sively worst.

Then sud­denly, the South Sea Bub­ble bursts leav­ing many prospec­tors with­out money or home. Lady Cecily is a vic­tim as well since her hus­band lost all of her money, well all of his money since they are mar­ried and wives didn’t own prop­erty and also he lost her fam­ily home. Many prospec­tors tried to com­mit sui­cide or they left Eng­land to escape debtor’s prison and much worst. Unfor­tu­nately for Lady Cecily, her hus­band tries to com­mit sui­cide, botches the whole thing and becomes a bur­den. Pen­ni­less and home­less, her hus­band is soon arrested and put in debtors prison.

Cecily and her sister-in-law, Dolly, stay with him, nurse him and take care of him as best they can until their funds run out. Lady Cecily reluc­tantly con­tem­plates aban­don­ment since she’s run out of ideas and refuses to use her body to barter. Then her husband’s lawyer, Archibald Cameron shows up and pays off his debts and soon they are released from prison.

Cameron tells Cecily and Dolly that he has found lodg­ings for them, that turn out to be in the mid­dle of nowhere. With no place else or no one else to turn to — they make the most of it and con­vert it into an Inn. Lady Cecily vows revenge against the King’s Prime Min­is­ter, Robert Wal­pole. Wal­pole becomes the sole rea­son for her to sur­vive and beat him at his own game. Cecily sees as her only weapon to hurt Wal­pole is to help the Jacobite’s. It’s a very dan­ger­ous deci­sion and one that causes Cameron much strife. In true Nor­man fash­ion, the story really takes off and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep you turn­ing the pages.

And yes, there is a hap­pily ever after.

This is another won­der­ful novel that has a sweet romance in it. I really enjoyed this novel for sev­eral rea­sons: His­tor­i­cal facts and the incor­po­ra­tion of real his­tor­i­cal fig­ures like Robert Wal­pole who was prime min­is­ter for the King for years. Most of Walpole’s laws were ridicu­lous on it’s face but many com­mon­ers were caught and per­se­cuted because of them.

Archibald Cameron is a won­der­ful hero who takes Lady Cecily under his wing and offers her his legal advise and even­tu­ally, his heart. This novel was an emo­tional punch to the gut too because of the strong sto­ry­telling skills of this author. I will say at times this novel was very gritty as the author holds noth­ing back in how these peo­ple lived dur­ing these pre­car­i­ous times. Any­way, this book was the hard­est to find and I did even­tu­ally find a copy. I highly rec­om­mend this book if you can obtain a copy and my fel­low read­ers, you will not be dis­ap­pointed if you enjoy his­tor­i­cal fiction.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Diana Nor­man, Blood Royal, His­tor­i­cal Mys­tery, Jaco­bite, The Pretender

For Fur­ther Reading

• ‘Grave Goods’ by Ari­ana Franklin (Mis­tress of the Art of Death Series)
• Give­away: Grave Goods (Mis­tress of the Art of Death) by Ari­ana Franklin
• REVIEW: ‘The Serpent’s Tale’ by Ari­ana Franklin
• REVIEW: Mis­tress of the Art of Death by Ari­ana Franklin
• REVIEW: A Catch of Con­se­quence by Diana Norman
• REVIEW: Tak­ing Lib­er­ties by Diana Norman
• REVIEW: Rain­wa­ter by San­dra Brown
• REVIEW: City of Shad­ows by Ari­ana Franklin
• The Other Boleyn Girl Trailer
• REVIEW: ‘Lord John and the Broth­er­hood of the Blade’ by Diana Gabaldon

Tagged as: Ariana Franklin, Diana Norman, Historical Fiction, Jacobite cause, The Pretender