PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Penn’s first book, a biography of Henry VII – arguably the Tudor monarch with the lowest public profile – showed that he could craft pacy and convincing accounts out of 15th-century source materials. In The Brothers York, he succeeds again, smoothing the period’s interlocking alliances and multigenerational feuds into a narrative that is always readable and even thrilling ... it’s a measure of Penn’s skill as a narrator that he offers memorable sketches of even peripheral characters and brings a novelist’s verve to his telling of events. This doesn’t quite happen as convincingly with some of the book’s women ... There are no simple analogies to be made between then and now, but Penn’s history of betrayal, backstabbing and paranoia strikes notes that still resonate today. On the brink of a new dispensation, England found itself desperately divided, its future far from certain.
