On tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club - Beware the Lizard Lurking (The House of the Red Duke, Book 2) By Vivienne Brereton #BookReview #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour @VivienneBreret1 @maryanneyarde

 

I am so excited to be hosting Vivienne Breterton's fabulous book during The Coffee Pot Book Club Virtual Blog Tour. Check out the blurb and then read my thoughts on Beware The Lizard Lurking.

Welcome to the candlelit courts of Europe!

Uninvited guests at a secret wedding.

 A frozen River Thames.

 May Day celebrations to remember.

The young Henry VIII, with the aid of his chief advisor, Thomas Wolsey, and against the counsel of Thomas Howard, the Earl of Surrey, is hellbent on a so-called holy war with France. This puts him at odds with his Scottish brother-in-law, James IV of Scotland, and his older sister, Margaret. 

Both Tristan and Nicolas know that time is running out for them before they have to…enter the Church - and into an arranged marriage, respectively. In the meantime, they remain at loggerheads over pretty Ysabeau de Sapincourt, the spoilt young wife of the hapless Robert.

At La Colombe, near Ardres, in Picardy, spirited little Valentine is still making mischief as she sees fit.

Across the Narrow Sea, Cecily is perfectly content in her beloved Zennor Castle, in Cornwall. 

None of them know what Dame Fortune has in store for them. Will she allow them to follow their own paths…or has she got other ideas?

My Review 

Having read the first book in Vivienne Brereton’s beguiling series, I was really looking forward to reading Beware the Lizard Lurking (The House of the Red Duke, Book 2). I have to admit that Beware the Lizard Lurking is one of the best depictions that I have ever read of the Tudor era and its principal players.

The Howards are once again centre stage—and what a conniving and power-crazed family they turned out to be! This excessive need for power amazed me. They would literally stop at nothing to get what they wanted. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but how I loathed Thomas Howard (junior) at the beginning of this novel, and I wasn’t too taken with Henry VIII and his childish excitement at the idea of going to war with France. These great men were nothing more than bullies, when one stops to think about it. It reminded me greatly of the quote from Shakespeare's *Scottish play:

"It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

And I think that really sums up the Howards, and all the rest of them. It is a story of selfish power and ambition. Oh yes, the Howards, as the Tudors, would be remembered, but not quite in the glowing terms that they would have wished!

The story itself is full of spite, but there are also some lighter moments and I enjoyed reading about the little girl, Valentine, and her desperate desire to get Tristan's attention—I can not help but wondering how the dynamics of that relationship with change when Valentine becomes a woman

This book will undoubtedly appeal to those who love to immerse themselves in the Tudor world.

* Shakespeare: William: Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 (penned 1606)

Buy this Book

Amazon UK • Amazon US • Amazon AU 

Vivienne Brereton

Born between historic Winchester and Southampton in the UK, Vivienne has been passionate about the Tudors for as long as she can remember. This led to a degree in Medieval History at university, and the growing desire to write a novel.

However, life took over somewhat and only after stays, short and long, in six countries she called home did she finally settle down to finish her novel.

Words have always played an important part in her life, whether it's been writing, editing, teaching English, or just picking up a good book.

Having three sons came in very handy when she had to write about squabbles between the male characters in her novel. Not so handy when she took her boys to Hampton Court and one of them got lost in the maze!

Seeing 'A Phoenix Rising', the first book in the series 'The House of the Red Duke' in print for the first time was a moment of great joy for her. She very much hopes that anyone reading ‘Beware the Lizard Lurking’, the second book in the series, will enjoy the end result as much as she enjoyed writing it.

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