This Son of York

 2nd edition is now released in time for the new movie The Lost King!

"Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by This Son of York..." -- William Shakespeare, Richard III

Richard III was Anne's muse for her first five books, but, finally, in This Son of York he becomes her protagonist. The story of this English king is one of history's most compelling, made even more fascinating through the discovery in 2012 of his bones buried under a car park in Leicester.  The new film, "The Lost King", starring Sally Hawkins and Steve Coogan, is about the process of finding England's only king whose gravesite was unknown.

This new portrait of England's most controversial king is meticulously researched and brings to vivid life the troubled, complex Richard of Gloucester, who ruled for two years over an England tired of war and civil strife. The loyal and dutiful youngest son of York, Richard lived most of his short life in the shadow of his brother, Edward IV, loyally supporting his sibling until the mantle of power was thrust unexpectedly on him.

Some of his actions and motives were misunderstood by his enemies to have been a deliberate usurpation of the throne, but throughout his life, Richard never demonstrated any loftier ambitions than to honorably discharge his duty to his family and his country.

In a gentler vein, despite the cruel onset of severe scoliosis in his teens, Richard did find love, first with a lover and then in his marriage to Anne Neville. Between these two devoted women in his life, he sired three and perhaps four children.

Bringing the Plantagenet dynasty to a violent end, Richard was the last king of England to die in battle. This Son of York is a faithful chronicle of this much maligned man.

 “Anne Easter Smith has written five well-regarded novels set in the Wars of the Roses, but the one she has been preparing to write, both in her imagination and after fifty years of research, is this novel about Richard III. Her mission was to bring Richard Plantagenet the man to life and let him speak directly to us in this meticulously rendered novel.”  -- Margaret George, International best-selling author of Elizabeth I and The Confessions of Young Nero 

*** Errata ***

The Plantagenet genealogy chart has an error in the top line. Blanche of Lancaster was NOT the child of Edward III but the wife of John of Gaunt. Ignore the vertical line from that generation to her.