Arthur: Prince of the Roses by Alison Weir
About the author
Alison Weir was born in 1951 and is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British Royalty.
Blurb
Arthur, the first Tudor prince, is raised to believe that he will inherit a kingdom destined to be his through an ancient royal bloodline. He is the second Arthur, named for the legendary hero-king of Camelot.
To be a worthy ruler, he must excel at everything – and show no weakness. But Arthur is not strong, and the hopes of England weigh heavy on his slight shoulders. And, all the while, his little brother Harry, the favoured, golden son, is waiting in the wings.
Review
I will be honest I was very excited to find that there were e-shorts to accompany Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series, so I immediately downloaded the first two and read them.
This e-short is about Arthur and is written from his point of view. Arthur has a lot to live up to and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was named after the great Arthur of Camelot who is legendary and his story inspires everyone, a lot for a young boy to think about growing up. He couldn’t help but feel pressurised without the knowledge of also been the oldest son and next in line to the English throne. Everything was stacked up against him.
I really liked how Weir had got into the head of Arthur. He was only young when he died and hardly lived life and Weir perfectly put this across. Weir showed a young boy who knew he would never be as good as his little brother and just wanted to be with his mother which wasn’t allowed.
This story really made me feel for Arthur and want to read a little more about him, in fact if Weir decided to do a full length story about him I would happily read it. I was disappointed with how short it was. I gave this e-short 3 out of 5 Dragons just because I found it too short and wanted that bit more. This was only 99p from Amazon which made it even better!
Lady Book Dragon 