Castile for Isabella review

Castile for Isabella

Jean Plaidy

2008

Historical Fiction

Rating: Very Good

Blurb: "Fifteenth-century Spain is rent with intrigue and threatened by civil war. Here, the young Isabella becomes the pawn of her half-crazed mother and a virtual prisoner at the licentious court of her half-brother Henry IV.

At just sixteen years old, is she already fated to be the victim of the Queen's revenge, the Archbishop's ambition and the lust of the lecherous Don Pedro Giron? Numbed by grief and fear, Isabella remains steadfast in her determination to marry Ferdinand, the handsome young Prince of Aragon, her only true betrothed."

I usually always enjoy Jean Plaidy's books, mainly because I can read about historical figures who aren't necessarily as well known (although she still does write about the more well known figures in history). This book was no exception. It was interesting to find out more about Isabella of Castile, who was the mother of Katharine of Aragon. The book covered her earlier years, from being a child through to becoming Queen of Castile. You see that her journey wasn't easy, with the people around her either trying to throw her off course or pushing her to take the throne early. It was nice to see that despite all of this, Isabella stayed true to her beliefs and her goal of marrying Ferdinand.

Overall this was another well written book by Jean Plaidy. The only problem that I had was that some of it seemed a little disjointed, but this could have been the way I read it. The other thing was that 4 year old Isabella seemed almost too mature for her age, with a rather large vocabulary. But it was an entertaining read and very interesting to find out more about a figure in history that I didn't know much about.