I admit I am a sucker for historical novels, especially those set in the Middle Ages. Isabella of Angoulême is not the best known of England’s queen consorts, but neither is she the least colourful. She married King John when he was thirty-three years old and she was about fourteen, effectively growing from adolescence to adulthood in the course of their married life. She had five children by John, and another nine by her second husband Hugh de Lusignan. To have survived John was in itself no mean feat, if the plot of this novel is anything to go by. It suggests a strength of character that was not commonplace in women of the time, even those of royal birth.

As historical novels go, this one is not exactly in the highbrow category. Forget your Sharon Penmans and your Dorothy Dunnetts, we are in quite different territory here. Whilst it is clear that substantial research has been carried out, the style of writing is anachronistic and the story is told with an eye to sensationalism rather than historical exactitude. This is not a condemnation, merely an observation. There is no reason why readers should not come to an interest in history through the reading of popular fiction, as generations of Jean Plaidy readers can testify. Rachel Bard has already written a novel about Berengaria of Navarre (who appears as a character in this book too) and apparently has plans to follow up with one on a more obscure medieval queen, Joanna of Sicily.

In this novel, the author’s enthusiasm for her chosen subject is clear from the outset. I wondered whether she was influenced by other fictional portrayals of Queen Isabella and to what extent she was concerned with breaking new ground. You would not choose Isabella as your heroine out of ignorance, but neither would you choose her for her pivotal role in history. Ms Bard sees Isabella as an essentially modern woman, one who has chosen her own way in life (insofar as this was ever an option for a medieval princess) and cares little for the opinions of other people. Serious students of history will know that this is not how it was. People of the 13th century had many of the traits of those of the 21^st century, but they carried a great deal of mental baggage, in the form of ideas about religion, politics and gender roles, which would seem very alien to us today.

Isabella stands out chiefly because of her two notable marriages, and there is an intriguing background story here, as she had been betrothed to Hugh of Lusignan before her marriage to John; depending which source you believe, her original fiancé was either the same man as her second husband, or his father. Ms Bard chooses the father-son relationship and sensibly uses the flashback technique for her narrative, allowing us to look at Isabella’s life in context and in full knowledge of her eventual fate, rather than trying to keep the ending of the story a secret. Instead of seeing it all through Isabella’s eyes, however, we shift from one character’s point of view to another, so that we have the opportunity to see her as others do. This strategy is intended to help us make up our own minds about her.

For all this, I found it difficult to relate to Isabella as portrayed here. She comes across as a kind of medieval Tracy Barlow, a man-eater with a voracious appetite for scandal and an ambition surpassed only by her sex drive, with the seeds of her personality already sown in her pre-pubescent years. She is depicted as a vain, spoiled child who grows into a demanding woman. In general, there is little in-depth characterisation. King John himself, even in the passages narrated from his own point of view, is a caricature, resembling the stereotypical "Robin Hood" villain.