I would like to thank netgalley and HQ for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Another intriguing medieval women, that I had never heard of before. I love O'Brien's works and can't wait to read more.

I was initially interested in reading this book, however my tastes have shifted and I do not think I will be able to get to it now. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a digital copy!

Good book. Good author. Loved the characters and the plot. I'm enjoying historical fiction especially those dating back hundreds of years, more now and this book was great.

As enjoyable as ever- well researched and envelops the reader in the historical period detail. Engaging characters and well defined, as well as great plotting. As good as Gregory!

In The Shadow Queen, O’Brien swept me back to 1340 to meet the beautiful, headstrong Plantagenet princess, Joan of Kent. She was the daughter of the attainted traitor, Edmund of Woodstock, the 1st Earl of Kent and first cousin to King Edward III. Joan has come to be better known to history as ‘The Fair Maid of Kent’, the wife of the doomed Black Prince and the mother of the child-king Richard II. However in her lifetime Joan’s reputation was not so good due to her ambitious nature and a string of salacious marriages!

First, at the tender age of just 12 years old, Joan secretly married Thomas Holland, a lowly knight, without gaining royal consent. This was followed only a year later by a bigamous marriage to the far more suitable William Montacute, the heir to the Earl of Salisbury, which was arranged by their mothers. With the chaos that ensured after all was revealed and the Pope was appealed to, to decide the matter, you’d have thought Joan would have learnt her lesson. But oh no! As a young widow, Joan went on to secretly marry Edward Woodstock, the son and heir of her cousin the king, again without royal consent or a Papal dispensation for their close kinship.

Of course if Joan had learnt from her mistakes and curbed her behaviour we wouldn’t have such a fascinating life to read about now! Previously, I have not read anything about Joan, so this was as much a history lesson as it was an entertaining read. O’Brien portrays Joan as an independent, passionate and ambitious woman, in a time where these were most unattractive traits in a woman. I couldn’t help but admire Joan who knew her mind from a young age and acted upon it, whatever the consequences, however I can’t say I particularly liked her because many of her actions are also rash and selfish.

Other characters it was interesting to read about was Edward Woodstock, the Black Prince who I had never read about before either. Also seeing Richard II and Edward IV young after having read about them as adults in O’Brien’s The King’s Sister and The Queen’s Choice. Plus it was Joan’s third son from her first marriage, John Holland, who went on to have his own salacious affair and subsequent marriage in The King’s Sister. I just love how O’Brien’s characters overlap in her books, which makes it possible for us as readers to see the bigger picture of the time period all from the perspective of the powerful, if often overlooked, women of the time.

<http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=63349>

The Shadow Queen is thoroughly enjoyable. It combines the best of Tudor fiction in a less well worn path. The sumptuous life at court, without knowing that henry gets his own way as usual.
There is the basic narrative of Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent (whose record of marriages matches that of Elizabeth Taylor!) with a really good account of the life of a woman in medieval times.
One absorbers the difference duties and opportunities of squire’s wife compared to that of a princes’ consort.
She loves, marries has children and then grieves for their loss, yet in-between this she plots and schemes not only for herself but for those she cares about. Her incredible brainpower is put to good use when the denser men deign to take heed of her plotting.
The fashions and decor of the day are really interesting – as is how they are interpreted. Towards the end I discovered she is wife of the famous Black Prince but even without any prior knowledge it is a really compelling story of how a powerless woman can achieve a lot.
Joan is not saintly or meek and does admit to being unfair in her dealings with a woman whom she is jealous of, but overall she is a very fair and honest woman who leads a very interesting life

A fascinating story based around the Medieval History of the last of the Plantagenets. Life was one war after another and the descriptions of the participants and their families brings the history to life. Lots of intrigue, romance and plotting. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

I dont usually read historical novels, this is my first one and not my last... excellent story line and plot, would highly recommend

I have read a number of books by Anne O Brian and always find the level of detail fascinating. My knowledge of medieval history is from reading books by this author and Philippa Gregory. This book gave flesh to the characters of Joan of Kent and the black prince and really filled in the gaps. An enjoyable and fascinating read. Couldn't put it down. Review posted to Amazon

Cousin to the King and a daughter of a traitorous brother, Joan is a spoilt and beautiful Plantagenet princess ripe for an illustrious marriage. However when a match with the son of the Earl Marshall is suggested Joan has to admit that she was married in secret at the age of twelve to a poor knight currently fighting in Prussia. Her family force through the prestigious marriage and Joan becomes Countess of Salisbury but her former flame comes back to claim his rights and Joan would rather be wife to Tom Holland. After a protracted legal battle Joan and Tom have a happy marriage blessed with children until she is widowed in her thirties. Still beautiful and now independently rich, Joan is ripe for another marriage but when her choice is her childhood friend, the eldest son of the king, Joan invites more scandal to her door.

Joan, the Maid of Kent, is known as the widow of the Black Prince, mother of Richard II, but this book shows that she had a fascinating life. Married three times, twice controversially and once bigamously, Joan was beautiful and wilful beyond what a medieval woman should have been. In writing this novel O'Brien has a taken an interesting story and woven her trademark romance around it. As ever, O'Brien's work is at the very romantic end of historical novels. The stories are based on fact and show a genuine love for the period and lots of research but there is also a very strong streak of fiction running through and the tales have a very heavy hand with the romance element. This appeals to many and if accepted makes O'Brien's books very enjoyable. By looking at the life of a rather overlooked character, this book is so much the better.

O’Brien offers us the opportunity to visit the historical reign of King Edward III, through the eyes of Joan of Kent, someone noted for her beauty and sharp mind, but seldom written about, despite being such an interesting character.
Her father the Earl of Kent was put to death for his part in a treasonous plot. When Edward was crowned king, he pardoned the Earl, but commandeered most of his land in exchange for (the Earl’s wife), Lady Wake’s children being cared for by the Royal Household. Joan saw little of her detached mother, but was cherished by Queen Philippa.
Strong minded from an early age, Joan was meant to be betrothed to William Montague, but at the mere age of 12 fell for and secretly married one of the King’s Knight’s - Thomas Holland, ten years her senior. They kept the marriage a secret, made easier because Holland was required to go to battle for the king. Holland wanted to secure sufficient funds before he approached the king with the news. With Joan being a Plantagenet, so of strong royal blood, she was always intended to marry well. To marry a commoner begged the question of whether Holland had ambitions to gain land and power as opposed to truly being in love with Joan.
What transpired were 3 marriages, 2 clandestine, 1 bigamous and lots of papal correspondence. Depicted as careful, subtle, manipulative and highly politic, this resourceful women made as many enemies as friends. Whether being a 14th century woman she was as powerful an influencer or more a pawn at the behest of more manipulative, powerful men is up for debate.
In this fictional account she is likeable through her more vulnerable thoughts, albeit she is still tough on the exterior. Her rich relationships with the men she wedded, the trials and tribulations relating to war and health are captured in a most enthralling way. There is tension, cunning and plenty of plotting as were the times. Great for both, drama, romance and periodically the ultimate leveller regardless of status – death. In all an exceptionally enjoyable read.

I love historical fiction, I really do. But I do like more of the historical than the fiction. And it has to be said that the genre has been saturated by The Tudors and The War of The Roses ( Thanks for that Phillipa) to the point where some fairly dramatic license has been taken with the past. Hell I read one that looked like a Jean Plaidy novel on the outside but inside alleged Anne of Cleeves and Kathryn Howard were having an affair.....I only found this out after having lent it to my 90 year old neighbour......she asked for more. But you get my meaning. Too many books about Tudors etc. So this interested me. I'm not very knowledgeable about this period so it was all new to me.
At the beginning of this novel Joan of Kent should be looking forward to a suitable marriage. As the cousin of Plantagenet King Edward, a princess in her own right her hand is a sought after prize and she is betrothed and married to William, the future Earl of Salisbury​. There is one problem though and it's a pretty considerable one - she's already married to Thomas Holland, an impoverished but dashing knight. Thus is the beginning of adult life for a woman who is destined to be Princess of Wales. It's a tale of intrigue and courtly love made all the better for it been based on a true story. It's fair to say that Anne O'Brien proves that there is a wealth of historical women a lot of us know nothing about and that we should know about! This is one of the best historical novels I've read in recent years. Now I just need to find room on my to be read pile for this authors back catalogue!

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for this digital copy for an honest review.

Anne O'Brien writes historical fiction as it should be! Everything is researched but never gets dry. The biggest issue historians have when writing historical fiction is making everything too factual, and novelists will usually give up historical accuracy for the sake of a good story. O'Brien strikes a perfect compromise between the two which made The Shadow Queen interesting and engaging. A book of politics, power, and what it means to be a woman in a world dominated by men, I really enjoyed The Shadow Queen. I'm a relative newcomer to Anne O'Brien's books but am definitely a convert now.

There’s much talk at present in Europe about strong women who occupy positions of power. I suppose it’s inevitable since we have a female Prime Minister in the UK plus, in the shape of Queen Elizabeth, the country’s longest reigning monarch; a female Chancellor in Germany and at one time it looked possible that France could have its first female President. Discussions in the media about these modern-day women at the helm of government proved a fitting companion for reading The Shadow Queen by Anne O’Brien.

This is a novel which takes us back seven hundred years to a woman who, while she never became Queen in her own right, was a pivotal figure in the mid 1300s. Joan of Kent (also known as the Fair Maid of Kent in celebration of her beauty) was cousin to one King, Edward III, and mother to another, Richard II. For a large part of her son’s reign she was the mastermind behind the throne since Richard was too young to govern in his own right.

She was quite a girl was our Joan. As a princess in the Plantagenet dynasty, the question of who she would marry was a matter of political expediency not love. She was meant to get hitched to either a European prince or an English lord from one of the foremost families in the land. But at the age of 12 Joan fell in love with and secretly wedded a humble knight who had barely a penny to his name. She kept it secret for three years during which time she went through a bigamous ceremony with the future Earl of Salisbury. When her bigamy was discovered it naturally caused a furore and became an international cause celébrè with various sides taking their appeals for help to the Pope. Joan got her own way but her reputation was tarnished.

You’d have thought one brush with ignominy would have been enough. But not a bit of it – years later, as a wealthy widow wooed by Edward, Prince of Wales (who later history labelled The Black Prince), she once again married in secret and once again incurred the wrath of the King.

Anne O’Brien’s novel brings to life a woman who from an early age was resolute in following a course of her own choosing:

<i>I would never again act against my better judgement in future. I would never allow myself to be persuaded to renounce what I knew to be in my best interests. … I had learned from my mother that a woman had to keep her wits and her desires sharp if she were to follow the path of her own choosing. </I>

A brave – though dangerous – stance to take in the highly charged atmosphere of the fourteenth century court, especially for a woman. But Joan is no shrinking violet – she is a girl intent on making a mark on the world:

<i>What would enhance the pattern of my life further? One word slid into my mind. A seductive word. A dangerous word, perhaps, for a woman. Power. </i>

The Shadow Queen is essentially a blend of romance and adventure that reveals how Joan kept one step ahead of the political intrigues with a combination of good judgement of character and some luck. She spent all her life at court. She knows what games those who surround the throne play – and how to beat them at their own games.

It makes for a good yarn with plenty of drama as Joan’s future ebbs and flows. After the discovery of her first marriage she is banished from the court and kept under close confinement by her family but years later she is in France ruling the roost with her 3rd husband as Princess of Aquitaine, (an English-owned territory). Written in the first person, Anne O’Brien’s novel gives us immediate access to Joan’s reactions to all the set backs and successes of her life.

This is a period of history about which I know very little so I enjoyed the insight The Shadow Queen provides. This is a period when knights and noblemen seemed to spend most of their time either preparing for war or engaged in battle. It was one way to keep them from squabbling and jostling for power and since every prisoner they captured could be ransomed, success on the battlefield was lucrative. The fate of their women folks was to be sit quietly at home caring for the children, sewing and praying.

Joan is strongly characterised but for me the most interesting character was the Prince of Wales. I’ve always had this impression of him as a ferociously brave military leader who won renown for his astonishing victories over the French at the Battles of Crécy and Poitiers, In The Shadow Queen, where he is generally referred to as Ned, he comes across as also a spendthrift and arrogant man who is so intent on enforcing his will on the people of Aquitaine that he forces them to seek support from their former ruler, the King of France. It’s Joan who sees the danger of her husband’s attitude but her sound counsel falls on deaf ears for once.

I thought the book could have been shorter without losing its impact but generally its blend of the personal and the political made it an enjoyable reading experience, especially for the glimpse it provided into a largely unknown episode in British history.

Anne O’Brien’s new novel, The Shadow Queen, tells the story of Joan of Kent, wife of the Black Prince and mother of the future King Richard II of England. Although Joan wasn’t actually a queen, she was never far from the throne – as cousin to Edward III, she had Plantagenet blood, and through her husband, Edward’s eldest son Edward of Woodstock (the name ‘the Black Prince’ was given to him later), she was both Princess of Wales and Princess of Aquitaine. When Richard acceded to the throne at the age of only ten, in her position as the king’s mother she was able to have some influence on the early years of his reign. In some ways, then, she could be considered to be a sort of ‘shadow queen’, as the title suggests.

Despite all of this, however, Joan is probably best known for her beauty – she would later become known to history as the Fair Maid of Kent – and for the scandals caused by her three marriages. The novel opens in 1340, with twelve-year-old Joan learning that a marriage has been arranged for her with Will Montagu, heir to the Earl of Salisbury. Joan doesn’t dislike Will and under different circumstances this would have been a good match. Unfortunately, though, Joan is not free to marry anyone – she has already undergone a secret marriage with Thomas Holland, a minor knight who departed shortly after the wedding to fight for the king. Forced to admit the truth, Joan is horrified when her mother insists that her marriage to Will must go ahead anyway. She faces a long and difficult battle if she is ever to prove the validity of her first marriage and to win the right to live with the man she considers her true husband.

Around half of the novel is devoted to Joan’s relationships with Thomas and Will and the challenges involved in disentangling Joan’s first two marriages and deciding who should be her rightful husband. This seemed to go on for a very long time, but I appreciated that it was necessary to give the reader an understanding of the gossip and rumour that surrounded Joan in the early part of her life and how important it was that, when she eventually married the King’s heir, Edward of Woodstock (Ned, as he is called in the novel), her reputation should be clear of any taint.

The other half of the novel follows the years of Joan’s marriage to Ned, their time as Prince and Princess of Aquitaine and, when back in England, Joan’s efforts to ensure that their son Richard will be named successor to the throne. I don’t think it’s a spoiler – as it’s a well-known historical fact – to say that Ned’s life is cut short by illness and as he is outlived by his father, he never has the opportunity to become king himself. I couldn’t help thinking how different things might have been if he had lived and Edward III had been succeeded by a grown man rather than a ten-year-old boy; what we know of the Black Prince suggests that although he was a good soldier he wouldn’t necessarily have made a good king, but still the whole course of history could have been changed. I liked the way Anne O’Brien portrayed him and I enjoyed reading about his relationship with Joan. There was a lot of love between them, but it wasn’t love at first sight – more a love that developed slowly between two people who had known each other from childhood – and, at least on Joan’s part, there was also a certain amount of ambition involved.

Joan herself is portrayed as a strong, proud and courageous person who does her best to take control of her own life, though always within the confines of what it is possible for a medieval woman to do. I’m not sure that I particularly liked her, as she does sometimes come across as a little bit self-absorbed and lacking in judgement, but I did find her a convincing and well-drawn character. I was intrigued by her prickly, hostile interactions with Edward III’s much maligned mistress, Alice Perrers – I know Alice was the subject of one of Anne O’Brien’s earlier novels, The King’s Concubine, which I haven’t read yet, and now I’m curious to see how she approaches Alice’s character in that book.

The Shadow Queen is an interesting, enjoyable novel, if a bit too long and drawn-out in places. I couldn’t help comparing it to the only other novel I’ve read on Joan of Kent – A Triple Knot by Emma Campion – and I think this is definitely the better of the two books.

Captivatiing

I was given a review copy of this book and I usually read crime and adventure, so reading The Shadow Queen, which is clearly Historical Fiction, is well removed from my norm. But I have to say, if all historical fiction is like this then it has a new convert!

A few checks on the internet (always a sauce of truth!) reveal that though the story is fiction, in that much of the story has had to be invented or surmised, the basic facts about Joan of Kent and most of the other main characters appear to be true, and the author has wound a very interesting and entertaining tale around them. The bonus is the insight it gives to the day to day life of the ‘upper classes’ of fourteenth century England, which in a way is even more fascinating than the historical story.

My general reaction when seeing a new book release from Anne O'Brien is something along the lines of, "But I always wanted to read more about her!" - she really does have an eye for drawing out the forgotten yet fascinating females of history. Whether it's Elizabeth of Lancaster - married off to an eight year-old, she ditched the kid for rakish John Holland, or Katherine Swynford (one of my personal heroines) or the disaster-prone Joanna of Navarre, it's always a relief to find a writer of historical fiction who is willing to look past the Wars of the Roses for their material. The Shadow Queen shows O'Brien keeping up her pattern of originality as she shines a light on the Fair Maid of Kent, the lady who was Princess of Wales, Princess of Aquitaine and oh so very nearly Queen of England. As with so many of O'Brien's heroines, I first read about Joan of Kent in a historical biography and was immediately stunned that she had been so forgotten - as with so many of the Plantagenets, her life was truly stranger than fiction.

Joan of Kent was widely celebrated for her beauty and was the granddaughter of Edward I, although there was that nasty business where her father was executed for treason during all the mess around Edward II being deposed. All the same, she was well-favoured in court as Edward III's cousin and grew up with everyone expecting her to make a suitably grand dynastic marriage. At thirteen, she was married off to William Monacute, the future Earl of Salisbury and all appeared to be well. But it wasn't. Because at the age of twelve, Joan had already secretly married a different man, Thomas Holland (and consummated the union) and then waved him off to fight in France. With her family hopeful that he might be dead, they had forced her into a second union despite the likelihood of it being bigamous. Cue an awful lot of backing and forthing to the Papal seat in Avignon before his Holiness concluded that Joan had actually been married to Thomas all along and that she should return to him.

Of course, typically for historical figures, there is no tidy Happy Ever After to be had here; as a soldier's wife, Joan had to endure years of uncertainty and the loss of all of the Salisbury wealth, but they produced four children together before Thomas died on an overseas campaign. Given that Husband #2 was still alive, Joan of Kent might not have appeared a particularly attractive marital prospect for some, despite the legendary beauty. Edward Prince of Wales (known to history as the Black Prince) felt differently however, with the two of them having known each other since childhood as well as being second cousins. Again without seeking royal consent, Joan and Edward married, setting off another round of backing and forthing to Avignon and leading to a seriously annoyed Pope demanding that Joan promise to never again seek a clandestine marriage and that the pair of them build two royal chapels to show that they were sorry.

Even here though, it's hard to pick out a happy conclusion as the newly-weds' reign in Aquitaine was ill-starred, Edward got ill with the long-term debilitating illness that eventually killed him and their eldest son died. It's an ambitious tale to try to fit into a historical fiction template and I did have the feeling that O'Brien was less assured than she had been in previous novels. With such a varied life, what can we honestly say motivated Joan of Kent? It's quite something to make an illicit marriage at the age of twelve - did she really just do it for love? Did she make her second marriage because she had tired of Thomas? Did she ever care at all for William? Did William truly keep her prisoner? Was she motivated by ambition or greed? What was it that drew her to her subsequent (second? third?) husband? O'Brien seems to think her ruthless, that she put her own interests before anything else. What if she was a romantic? I wished that O'Brien had fleshed out her relationship with Edward before their marriage - for a prince who could have married anyone, what drew him to Joan? She was beautiful, he had known her all his life - is it so outrageous to suppose that they had long had a spark?

What always fascinated me about Joan of Kent was the extent to which she pulled strings in the background. While her husband died before she could be Queen, given that her son acceded at nine years old, she was a necessary mover behind the throne and she does seem to have developed a strong alliance with John of Gaunt. Long-term fans of the Plantagenets will find much to enjoy in The Shadow Queen which breathes fresh light into a too-long neglected corner of history. This is not to say that it was a perfect read - I have grown used to O'Brien's habit of spending a page or so having her heroine look into a mirror and describe her own face but I did find myself wondering about the editing process in The Shadow Queen. In the acknowledgments, O'Brien expresses thanks to her team who 'take her ideas' and shape them into a book. I appreciate that I am receiving a proof copy, but I was still startled by how repetitive the text was. There was multiple instances of exchanges such as this, "William had thrown down the gauntlet and Thomas had really picked it up. "What do you expect", I said to William, "You threw down the gauntlet and Thomas picked it up". Reading this on a Kindle, I took to highlighting the passages like this and it got into the double figures so that while I heartily enjoyed the story, I did feel that O'Brien had been somewhat failed by her editing team.

In terms of enjoyment however, The Shadow Queen rates highly. While my love for the Black Prince has never quite equalled my passion for John of Gaunt, I did still get as giddy as a goose when I saw his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, so reading more about his life was fascinating. There is definite room for further development with the hints dropped within the novel of Richard II's future instability - could O'Brien feature the life of Anne of Bohemia, long thought of as 'Good Queen Anne' and a stabilising force on her husband? Or even Mary, Henry IV's first wife, another figure who I have long wondered about. O'Brien writes with a great deal of feeling and I do feel that she seeks to understand and to humanise these figures of history rather than to demonise or over-dramatise, unlike a certain author who regular readers will know I loathe (*cough* Gillipa Phregory *cough*). Reading an O'Brien novel is for me like sitting down to a very indulgent dessert and The Shadow Queen was an ideal companion during my holiday.

I have read books by Anne O'Brien previously to this. I am interested in this period of English history and I wondered how this book would compare. If anything I enjoyed it more than previous books. It is well researched, some of the dialogue well imagined and it was not as 'romanticised' as a couple of her previous books have been. An enjoyable historical read.

This is the first book by this author I have read....it will not be the last. I know very little about this period of history and I normally read Civil War so the Plantagenets was a real difference for me. Though the story starts slowly you are quickly dragged into the book and it really is remarkable to get to know more about this period of history. /an absolutely cracking read and a great addition to British history novels.