The countess and her protégée: Royal Witch by Philippa Gregory

In Royal Witch, Philippa Gregory—an advocate for revivifying lesser-known historical women’s lives—presents a female character deserving of prominent attention for her courage, unerring confidence in her position’s righteousness, and determination to pursue justice for herself in a male world. She was an English royal duchess by marriage, an alliance designed to bolster her strength against her enemies.

The story of Jacqueline, Countess of Hainault, is a revelation, a treasure trove for any novelist¹, and Gregory recounts it smartly and with nuance.

Jacqueline is not, however, the novel’s protagonist, a role given to the woman who becomes her lady-in-waiting, protégée, and eventual replacement as wife to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in the 15th century.

Pub. by William Morrow (US/Can), HarperCollins (UK)

Eleanor Cobham² is likewise sterling material for fiction, given her remarkable rise from relative obscurity to second lady of the realm during the Hundred Years’ War. Then, following accusations of treasonable necromancy (!) against the king, she swiftly fell into disgrace and out of public view. In Gregory’s interpretation, the book’s title is apt and accurate.

The prolific Gregory, of course, has featured witchy women before, including in an early novel, The Wise Woman (1992)³. In her author’s note⁴ for Royal Witch, she shares her longtime interest in Cobham and that she’d persuaded her friend, historian David Baldwin, to pen Cobham’s biography, which was left unfinished at his death. Gregory inherited his manuscript and, expressing gratitude to him, explains that she incorporated the material into what she calls “one of my most fictional novels.”⁵

Jacqueline and Eleanor: their tales are inextricably entwined. Their interpersonal dynamics shed light on who they are, and their linked stories create a novel that’s refreshingly new in parts, weighted with tropes in others.

Eleanor’s narration begins promisingly, as a young woman who craftily engineers a way out of a future in a convent. In 1421, she travels to Henry V’s royal court with the goal of catching a noble husband. She attaches herself to Countess Jacqueline, who’s in London seeking a champion. The heiress to her late father’s lands in the Low Countries and what’s now northern France, Jacqueline sees her rightful inheritance challenged by her estranged husband and her cousin, the Duke of Burgundy. The situation is complex: England’s at war with France, with Burgundy as England’s ally, making Jacqueline’s demands inconvenient.

Then an unexpected death throws England into turmoil. Gregory steers through the political maze with precision and clarity. Humphrey of Gloucester, King Henry’s youngest brother, takes up Jacqueline’s cause out of chivalry (or so Eleanor initially perceives) and later marries her—an act of questionable legality.

Through Eleanor’s first-person narrative, we follow her, Jacqueline, Humphrey, and his English army across the channel, their travels strikingly illustrated via scenes of the land’s cities and towns. Their varied customs are a pleasure to discover. Seeing Jacqueline’s pride in her own leadership and her elegant palace at Le Quesnoy, Eleanor swells with ambition, envisioning a model for what she herself could be. But Jacqueline’s strong, single-minded manner—it’s unwomanly—causes her husband to take offense. This grants Eleanor an opening.

She laughs shortly. ‘How many people does he need to fuss over him?’
I smile. ‘He’s a prince,” I remind her. “He needs a court full of people fussing over him.’
‘Yes, do,” she says. “You remember the wifely things I can’t be bothered with.’

Back in England, Eleanor takes advantage of her position by maneuvering her way to high levels of power, a status beyond her wildest hopes. Yet her objectives turn dark and viciously spiteful after a perceived personal betrayal, a motive that's purely fictional. The herbalist Margery Jourdemayne, an enjoyable character, is one of many drawn into her evil web. Meanwhile, a secret relationship that later gives rise to the Tudor dynasty unfolds in a well-conceived subplot.

It’s one thing to depict Eleanor’s transformation from ambitious naivete to cold shrewdness, a progression that Gregory handles well. But it’s another to have her heroine devolve into stereotype, with lines like: “This is the moment I have waited for and the time to make my move” and “I want you to make dark magic… the darkest of the magic.”

The author’s distracting tendency to repeat words for emphasis, fortunately absent early on, emerges as the plot continues. One example paragraph has six sentences beginning with “She says.” In the end, with the reader trapped within Eleanor’s malignant delusions for much too long, the final chapters arrive with a sense of relief.

Gregory is very capable at writing power-hungry women, even malicious ones, with greater levels of shading than this. Despite the less-than-subtle approach, this will be a vital read for Gregory's fans—particularly since this precedes her other Plantagenet novels—plus anyone wishing to step into unfamiliar royal territory. But don’t be surprised if tolerance for Eleanor runs out before the novel’s pages do.

Royal Witch was published on Oct. 20 by William Morrow/HarperCollins (US/Can) and HarperCollins (UK).

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Notes:

1. Some years ago I bought a copy of Hilda Lewis’ I, Jacqueline (1957), a biographical novel about her. It was rare at the time, so I was excited to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, I found it so dull that I barely read half of it. It was republished in 2008.

2. Eleanor Cobham figures as a main character in Jean Plaidy’s Epitaph for Three Women (1983), which I vaguely remember reading decades ago, and in Tony Riches’ The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham (2014), which I haven’t yet read.

3. See my earlier review of The Wise Woman (reissued 2008), about a novice-turned-dark witch in Tudor England; there are many similarities in plot and character to this one.

4. In the eARC I read from Edelweiss, the author’s note is at the beginning of the book. The final published version appears to include it at the end, based on the Amazon snippet.

5. I’d love to have read Baldwin’s nonfiction manuscript, to glean the facts without the heavy fictional embellishments.

Three historical mysteries sweep readers to colonial Fiji, medieval Lindisfarne, and 1908 New England

“King Devil” is also known as hawkweed, an invasive flowering plant with tall, fuzzy stalks. In Charlotte MacLeod’s standalone mystery (first published 1978), it also refers to a nasty old man who disappeared from the rural New England village of Dalby, leaving heaps of trouble behind him.

In 1908, having recently graduated from finishing school, 18-year-old Lavinia Tabard arrives to stay with her father’s cousin Zilpha and her live-in companion (and lover, though that word remains unspoken), the spiteful and jealous Tetsy Mull. Lavinia knows she’s considered an unwanted poor relation but decides to make the best of things, ambling through the region and using her schooling to assist two young architects with their typewriting.

On her explorations, Lavinia makes a rubbing of a centuries-old gravestone and notes that the man’s original death date, obscured by the leaves of many King Devil plants, was overwritten in slate with a more later one. Curious. The man whose body occupies the plot, Jonah Josiah Jenks, has the same name as his descendant, the one who’d vanished and who was the previous owner of Zilpha Tabard’s house. Also curious.

Between an ongoing inheritance dispute, Tetsy’s bitterness, less-than-neighborly tensions, and questions about Jenks’s whereabouts, the plot has plenty to keep a reader occupied. The period details are deliciously quaint, from the bone hairpins Lavinia uses to secure her waist-length tresses in an updo to people’s verbal expressions to the bumpy travels of Zilpha’s automobile in the hands of a too-careless driver. Then there are the characters’ own names, an eccentric patchwork of period charm. Some people, alas, show derogatory attitudes toward a young man we’d now call neurodivergent; the terminology sadly feels period-accurate though may come as a shock today.

The mystery unfolds at a steady pace, and while Lavinia is far from what you’d call a detective, she does unravel a surprisingly complex web of happenings. I found King Devil as a recent BookBub deal and discovered I already owned a copy, likely having purchased it during a previous promotion. (Reprinted by Mysterious Press/Open Road, 2017.)

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Historical fiction fans seek novels that will let them feel the distinct fabric of an unfamiliar time and place. Nilima Rao’s A Disappearance in Fiji achieves this splendidly. It’s the first in a mystery series that follows Sergeant Akal Singh, a Punjabi Sikh from India, on his investigations during his time in Fiji, a career direction he approaches with sad resignation. During his initial posting to Hong Kong, he had numerous crime-solving successes but was transferred away following a disgraceful error, a situation that Rao deftly reveals midway through.

For now, it’s 1914, and Akal aims to keep his head above water as a police sergeant for the Fijian Constabulary in the capital, Suva. The British colonial government employs many Indian and Fijian officers but, unless they have important ties, like Akal’s friend Taviti, nephew of an important chief, their presence is merely tolerated… until they’re found useful for one reason or other.

At his superior’s request, Akal gets pulled away from a dull “night prowler” case and assigned to travel to the Parkins sugar plantation in Nakavu in pursuit of a missing woman, an indentured worker from India. A newspaper reporter had declared that she’d been kidnapped, based on a Catholic missionary’s statement. Although the inspector-general, Akal’s boss, suspects she ran away, he has a visiting Indian delegation there to review the indentured servitude program and doesn’t want them upset—since the sugar cane industry relies on its Indian workers.

Rao creates a psychologically complex portrait of Akal, who, at only twenty-five, is still adjusting to his changing environment. Out at the plantation, the pretty and patronizing Mrs. Parkins looks upon him with disdain, and Akal is horrified to see the buildings his indentured fellow countrymen are forced to live in. The workers themselves endure backbreaking labor under terrible conditions—if they work less than a full day, it doesn’t count against their term of indenture—but are proud people who’ve created their own community.

Between the Parkinses’ sour and racist attitudes toward him (even though he sees himself as of higher status than the workers), varied accounts of the missing woman (whose name he learns is Kunti), and external pressure to make the case go away, Akal’s got his hands full, and the novel weaves all these elements into a completely fascinating mystery. It has a sequel, A Shipwreck in Fiji, which I’ll be reading soon. (Published by Soho Press, 2023, and by Zaffre Press in the UK.)

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In Cressida Downing’s Consider the Ravens, it's 1494, the tenth year of Henry VII’s reign. A young woman named Linnet arrives on Lindisfarne, Holy Island, off England’s northeast coast, having walked there during low tide. It's meant to be a place of safety. A trained scribe, she offers her services to Prior Richard while ostensibly waiting for her father, a traveling Obituary Roll-Bearer who’d brought her for visits there as a child. Her old friend Tom, a fisherman with a gambling problem, greets her warmly.

But Linnet has a dubious past, one she dares not reveal to the Prior, his monks, or anyone else. Having fled a fearful man named Guy, she intends to take refuge at Lindisfarne and lie low. Then one man dies in odd circumstances, and another, and Linnet suspects they were murdered.

The plot feels somewhat nebulous until Linnet’s backstory is established, about 20% in. With this aspect revealed, satisfyingly so, more questions remain. Who’s doing the killing, and why? And will Linnet’s secrets be uncovered?

This historical crime novel has sedate pacing that suits a remote island monastery, and both mysteries have equal emphasis. There’s also ample internal tension. The monks aren’t thrilled at having an educated woman around the priory; an inspector for the Bishop of Durham is nosing into everyone’s business for his report. Linnet’s principal ally is a half-feral girl with an irksome pet raven. Linnet doesn’t believe the gossip that Isabelle is a witch’s brat, but the bird does act awfully… familiar.

Meanwhile, the rhythms and rituals at Lindisfarne continue, and Downing describes these scenes marvelously: “The Priory Church itself was radiant, the lights from the monks’ candles spilling out into the darkness while their plainsong rose up into the still cold sky.” The novel gets better with each chapter, and it has multiple openings for potential sequels. Available now in the UK, it was recently acquired by Minotaur Books, who will publish it in the US and Canada in July 2027. (Published by No Exit Press/Bedford Square, 2026.)

A gift of clairvoyance: River of Dreams by Robin Blackburn McBride

Annabelle Avery Conlon, the appealing heroine of Canadian writer Robin Blackburn McBride’s newest novel, has a richly developed interior life, letting her thoughts flow with utter honesty as she narrates her out-of-the-ordinary path. Her inward focus is partly personality-driven, partly a logical consequence of events that change her.

If you developed the sudden ability to experience visions following a life-threatening accident, you’d probably be hesitant to speak of it.  Especially in a time and place like early 20th-century Toronto, where young Avery sees firsthand how girls and women are stifled if they depart from societal norms.

Pub. by Guernica Editions (Oct. 2026)

“When I look at you, Jennie, I see a baby. Does that mean anything to you?”

In the prologue, set in 1923, we view Avery in action as a nurse in a grim institution for the mentally ill. She later realizes her patient isn’t insane, but consumed by anguish, and tries to help Jennie work her way to recovery. Throughout this unusual novel, a blend of historical fiction with the supernatural, Avery’s decisions on how and when to use her newfound abilities instill the story with a feeling of compassion and hope.

As a child, hope is a quality Avery clings to in a world she learns is full of lies. When she’s just twelve, in 1914, her brother is born, and she overhears an odd comment from the midwife that makes her question her own parentage. Her mind filled with frustration and anger, a winter accident on the Don River leads to a near-death experience under the ice, complete with shimmery glimpses of a mysterious “River Boy” and scenes from her past, including a woman with blonde hair and silvery rings who held her as a baby.

As she grows, her desire to find her birth mother—if that’s indeed who she saw in her vision—drives Avery forward, as does her determination to use her gift to help vulnerable women at the lowest point in their lives, her healing process surpassing the abilities of traditional medicine. A potential romance, however, has her wondering how far she can trust her partner with knowledge of her secret intuition.

The writing is warm and fluid as it moves between Avery’s experiences and her personal journey of self-discovery against a period-appropriate background of “windsilvered water” and childhood fairy-tale books, of grisly wartime images and the dankness of an asylum’s forgotten basement. Wonder and dread, intertwined, and Avery must bravely steer her own course through it all.

Her expressions of amazement (“Holy cow,” “Hell’s bells”) and frequent habit of posing internal questions bring out her personality, but fewer examples of these would have been more effective. Still, Avery remains intriguing company through her everlasting pursuit of greater understanding and truth.

River of Dreams was published by Guernica Editions, an Ontario-based press, on October 1 ($18.00 / CAN $24.95, 250pp).