"It wasn't desire that was the enemy, but the inability to assuage it. Desire was only an emotion. It was no more evil than love."

"There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it."

"It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge."

"My true self will be hidden and history will never speak of me except as the daughter of one king, the wife of another and the mother of a third."

"Daughter mine, you have known for all your life that you would be married for the good of the country and the advancement of your family. You will do your duty like a princess, wherever your heart is buried, whoever you want or don't want, and I expect you to look happy as you do it."

I have had Phillipa Gregory's novels on my TBR list for a while and finally decided to read them. I admit, I am not a history buff, but I have enough of a working knowledge to get some correct answers on Jeopardy. I have enjoyed the books! It was interesting to read events from Anne's point of view after having read the story from other view points. It just shows how differently people will interpret the same set of events/circumstances.

"This is fortune's wheel indeed. You can go very high and you can sink very low, but you can rarely turn the wheel at your own bidding."

"I think that I too should feel victorious. I am where my father wanted me to be. I am the greatest lady in the land - never again need I fear treading on someone's train - for now everyone follows me."

"Now I see that every man is a kingmaker. A throne is not empty for a moment before someone is being measured for the crown. And fresh princes spring up like weeds in a crop as soon as the rumour goes out that those who wear the crown are dead."

"If a woman rises to greatness she becomes every woman's enemy. If she fights to keep her greatness then everyone, men and women, simply hate her."

"We were born the kingmaker's daughters; ruling England is our inheritance."

"It is as if we are re-enacting those days of victory and Father is once again unstoppable. Now he has a second king in his keeping and he is going to put a new puppet on the throne. The French servants who come into the city of Calais tell us that the French call my father 'the kingmaker' and say that no-one can hold the throne of England without his permission."

"It was my father who bravely drove the sleeping king off the throne and put his crown on the head of King Edward, so it must be right."

I liked this book, but I didn't love it. It served as an excellent continuation of the overall story line but I had difficulty with Margaret's narration. I would rate the book a solid 3.5/5 stars.

"To know oneself is to know all, and I will confess my own sin and the part it played in our failure."

Current Location: Page 198/341, 58%, 1482.

Spent the majority of my work day reading which is always lovely and made some excellent progress. I have mixed feelings on the main character Margaret, as she lacks the more endearing qualities of prior characters. Her piety and sense self of importance can come across as whiny, immature, and self entitled. Yet, her devotion to her son is what humanizes her and makes her character more believable.

"I am known to nobody. I am a flower that wastes its sweetness on the desert air, indeed. He has never even seen me. No one has written a single, solitary ballad about me; no one has drawn my likeness. I am wife to a man of no ambition, who will not ride out to war until he is forced to go. I am mother to a son in my enemy's keeping, and I am the distant love of a defeated man in exile."

"I long for her to hold me and hug me and tell me that she has missed me, but that would be to wish for a different mother, and then I would have been a different girl."