Book Review: The Adventures of Alianore Audley

The Adventures of Alianore Audley
4 roses

If you are familiar with the Wars of the Roses and love a good laugh now and then, Brian Wainwright's humorous tale of the fictional Alianore Audley will be right up your alley! I received this tale from Paperbackswap.com after waiting (not so patiently I might add!) to get to the head of the waiting list! I think I read it in a night or two, it was that easy and fun to read.

I am not going to rehash everything that happens in the turbulent period as many of my readers are familiar with it anyway and I don't have the motivation to type it all out right now. However, to get most of the jokes and tongue in cheek writing you probably need to have at least a passing knowledge of the events of the period. The author manages to weave facts about the period with humor and more modern (and to some, understandable) words and expressions, creating a really fun romp through the 15th century. Mr. Wainwright places Alianore right in the middle of the action where she unknowingly (or knowingly in a lot of cases!) does something that causes many of the "big" events we know from history to actually happen (such as accidentally revealing where the Princes are to Bishop Morton). Alianore is a staunch Yorkist supporter (and distant cousin) and becomes a spy for Edward IV and then for his brother Richard III and eventually finds herself at the helm of a Medieval version of the CIA! Alianore's character is hysterical with her dry humor and (very) quick wit. She can be quite bawdy at times as well. Her thoughts and opinions on the people around her are hilarious.

I highly recommend this novel to those that are familiar with the period; you will get a laugh out of most of it. I'm not saying you're going to be falling out of your chair because you're laughing so hard throughout all 200 or so pages, but you certainly are going to be amused! Mr. Wainwright really shows off his knowledge of the period in this fun parody.