PositiveThe London Review of Books (UK)[Penn] he combines a keen sense of time, place, circumstance and anecdote with a firm grasp of human psychology, of the macabre, the comic and the tragic, and – perhaps as important as any of these – an instinct for the rhythm of a sentence ... One of the great strengths of Penn’s narrative is that it constantly factors in the distorting effects of European rivalries on English domestic stability ... Penn’s is a very masculine book: women of the calibre of Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville surely deserved more space. Jane Shore, reputedly Edward IV’s favourite mistress, doesn’t make an entrance until the king is dead.
