Having read the first part of the Cousin's War series by P. Gregory and being rather confused by the abundance of names and turn-coates I decided to give it another try and read the second book of the series. Unfortunately it also prooved a major waste of time.

Like in the first book, the heroine is unsympathetic, nicely put. This time the reader is not punished by following the story of a conniving prolific birthing machine but by the thoughts and dealings of a religious nut.

Margaret Beaufort is only 13 when she is married off to a husband twice her age for political reasons. She believes that she is cut out for something better and that she has to be England's new Joan of Arc, so she grieves the loss of her virginity. I actually felt sorry for her when she has to endure practically being raped by her husband every night and an nightmarish birth, howeveer her self-righteousness was very annoying.

It isn't long that her husband dies in one of the thousand squirmishes for the throne and she is married off to another guy eventhough she is secretly smitten with her late husband's brother Jasper. This whole frilly nilly love story crap is embedded in the to and fro around the throne of England and like in the first book I lost track of who (which house) was on the throne when and supported by whom. I had to permanently cross-check with wikipedia, hampering the flow of reading.

This is my second book by Philippa Gregory and I can savely say that I probably won't touch another one of her works.